Message in a Bottle

I'm just going to say it. I have 70 4-oz bottles of water sitting in my house. Why is this a problem? Well, given that I'm trying to conserve water, it pains me to think of how much water actually went into bottling this water. I just read that it takes three times more water to make a bottle than the amount of water IN the bottle. I didn't know if I could trust the source of that statement, so I looked elsewhere and read something that claimed it was seven times. Well, damn-it, I was trying to find something that told me it was LESS, not more! Okay, here's a little snippit of what I have to live knowing now (http://lighterfootstep.com/2008/05/five-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water/):

The corporatization of water

"In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies.

"Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity’s most precious resource.

"Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water."

Sooo, I'm reading this and looking at the bottles and bottles of water sitting in my entrance way and I know what I have to do. I have to return it. There's no way that I can claim to you that I am serious about this and then distribute these (Oh, did I mention that I bought them because we are having a party in the backyard? Is that a good excuse to add to the demise of the earth's resources?)

Believe me, I don't want to go back to Costco tomorrow to return these suckers. But I'm going to. The next step in my endeavor is to swear off bottled water. This is not going to be easy. Especially when my toddler bellows about how thirsty he is. Bottled water is easy. It's within arm's length faster than you can say "1.5 million tons" (the amount of plastic waste created by water bottles every year). But really, leaving the house without water is just a habit. My new habit will be to always carry water on me. No plastic water bottle, no bottled water. I've got water coming out of all the faucets, and it turns out, it's no different than the water in the freakin bottles. What!? More on that tomorrow.