Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: Bled on March 26, 2009, 06:06:37 pm
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Jump. (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~djames/bottledWater/)
This webpage describes an animation that we made to raise awareness about the surprisingly poor recycling rates of plastic water bottles. Since its recent popularization, bottled water (in all its flavors) has become one of the most consumed, yet least recycled beverages. For example, it is estimated that in 2005 alone approximately 30 billion plastic water bottles were purchased, with only about 12% recycled (in part due to out-dated deposit laws). The remaining 25 billion bottles were either landfilled, littered or incinerated. Obviously that's a lot of bottles, but statistics involving "billions of bottles per year" can be difficult to put into perspective.
This computer animation provides a simple visual comparison of the rate at which plastic water bottles were recycled (approx. 100 bottles/second) to the nonrecycled rate (approx. 845 bottles/second; see image) in 2005. To make it more compelling we simulated and rendered both torrents of plastic water bottles using custom multibody dynamics, collisions, finite-element structural vibrations and sound synthesis.
Here's the youtube for those of you who don't wanna download the .avi -
In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.
Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.
It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.
Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.
In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.
Plastic bottles take 700 years before they begin to decompose in a landfill.
If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.
The website is a link that I found amidst a bunch of other bottled water info and stuff about water in your home that a guy hired me to make a website about. I don't have a source for the info in parenthesis as this is how it was sent to me, but if it's true then I happen to find it pretty interesting!
Post logs of your bottled water consumption versus the rate at which you recycle shit, and by "post logs of your bottled water consumption versus the rate at which you recycle shit" I mean discuss.
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don't buy bottled water you're a fool to yourself your water bill will be cheaper than your total bottled water expenditure.
I mean fuck if I could give a shit about recycling / landfills buuut it is just a silly thing to do.
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I don't think I will ever be able to understand why people pay $3.99 for a liter bottle of water with some "electrolytes" in it. Unless they are stranded in the Sahara or something and they stumble upon a vending machine in the middle of the desert.
Fun Fact: In "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" there's a Smart Water advertisement on the side of a building near the beginning of the movie.
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i buy a pack of 24 water bottles for only 2.19 because i can't stand the taste of filtered or tap water. i recycle them all.
edit: that and recently we've noticed that when we use tap water in the kettle it leaves little grey particles everywhere as well as some larger green/black chunks once the water has boiled... after a couple of weeks of usage the inside of the kettle turns a dark brown with a film of grey precipitate and it's really disgusting, only further puts me off tap water :/ (in university, at least).
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Bottled water is regulated less than plain tap water, and even the more expensive water filters you can have in your house end up being cheaper than regularly drinking bottled water.
People are pretty dumb for thinking they're not getting totally ripped off.
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I bought a single bottle and have been reusing it over and over again.
Tap water usually isn't that bad, depends on your location. And if it is you can pay for a filter.
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what about when you're at work. or at school. or anywhere you can't use a water filter.
altho lol at flowerpower...can't stand the taste of filtered water *shudders*
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you know whats totally gay? bottled water is totally fucking gay
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I only drink bottled water when travelling cause I'm usually too lazy to check if you can drink the
water there or not.. except Norway. You can drink from rivers there!!
Obviously I don't recycle when travelling, but hey, it's that countries problem.
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Ilike my water full of fluoride so I dont have to brush my teeth
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I have a Sigg aluminum water bottle. We get the Ice Mountain water to come every week so I just drink that. Occasionally I will buy a juice in a bottle at school but I will recycle it.
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we'd always recycle at home but apparently philadelphia is just starting to catch on. most places (eg my apartment) don't even have recycling. not that it matters too much, city people don't even use trash cans on the street or in their homes so getting them to recycle is like teaching a fish to chew.
not that I would ever drink bottled water, water's for pansies and the stuff from the tap will steal your essence. the only stuff I'll touch been distilled - 160 proof rye whiskey.
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altho lol at flowerpower...can't stand the taste of filtered water *shudders*
it actually depends on the filter. the filter that my roomate brought makes really awful-tasting water (confirmed by several people who have tasted it thus far), I think it depends on the filter membrane or whatever that the filter is lined with ... i think this one is carbon-based or something so it gives a really weird flavour.
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it actually depends on the filter. the filter that my roomate brought makes really awful-tasting water (confirmed by several people who have tasted it thus far), I think it depends on the filter membrane or whatever that the filter is lined with ... i think this one is carbon-based or something so it gives a really weird flavour.
One time on TV I saw a test about bottled water. They gave 1000 people 6 samples of water.
One was bottled water, 4 were tap water, one was distilled urine. There was not a single person who could genuinely tell the difference between any of them (because there is none), obviously, 1/6th of people correctly guessed the bottled water, but that is to be expected and even if they did not try the samples the results would have been similar.
The test then went on to produce and sell bottled water, it was relatively cheap compared to standard bottled water... Oh yeah, the water used was tap water. On the trials they did with the product, not a single person could tell was just tap water in the bottle.
I honestly cannot believe that the tap water from where ever you live tastes to bad you would resort to spending several thousands of times more on bottled water. I am guessing most of the "bad tasting" water is more psychological than anything, similar to a placebo effect. Because you know it is tap water, you are basically tricking yourself into thinking it is worse than it really is.
People who buy and drink only bottled water are pretty crazy if you ask me!
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The only time I ever get bottled water
1) I am in a public place with vending machines but no water fountains. (Actually, I lean towards bathroom-sink tapwater now because bottled water is a fucking rip-off.)
2) Camping and for whatever reasons water jugs are not available or not convenient
The only GOOD bottled water (ie: doesn't taste shitty) comes from tap water anyway.
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There obviously is a psychological effect since I've basically been nurtured into it, but there really IS a difference in taste ESPECIALLY with the filtered water (there is a very strong distinctive taste about it; it tastes worse than just the tap water alone). Tbh I would drink the tap water but all those random particles in it (which I have never seen at home in any of my tap water) basically put me off of it.
the best water i have ever tasted was when i pulled out a bucket of water in an underground well in russia, holy shit.
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The distinctive taste you get is from minerals in the piping (so lead pipes are bad), unless it's filtered.
If the source use for tap is near a cattle farm then the water will taste horrible.
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Tap water is generally better than bottled water around here. In fact, bottled water is in some cases bottled tap water.
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Back home our tap water is just fine, but in our dorms the water is DISGUSTING to drink. It comes out fairly cloudy too. So, when I'm here, I tend to get bottled water. However, I do usually recycle the bottles.
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In some places, tap water is literally undrinkable. In other places (like the Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario) the water is extremely mineral rich and has a very obvious taste, sort of like drinking out of a limestone goblet. It's drinkable, but some people don't like it. Here in Toronto, however, the tap water is deliciously impossible to taste.
If you live in a place where the tap water is obviously really bad, then I can see getting those jumbopacks of water bottles and using them. If you live in a place that has decent water for consumption then you are pretty dumb to buy water bottles, even if you recycle them. I read once long ago that it takes like 80% of the energy required to produce a new bottle to recycle one (this could be FALSE). I mean, I recycle absolutely everything, but if we didn't CONSUME at retardedly high rates then we would be zounds better off. Seriously, how hard is it to re-use shit?
It makes a tonne of sense to drink bottled water while backpacking (although you could take your own bottles and fill 'em up at home!) since you don't really know what zany bacteria are floating around in available water sources, but sitting around in your apartment late at night I think you're safe.
"Shit I think I tasted a calcium ion, this water is DIGUSTING." *barfs on penny loafers*
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I've got cloudy/disgusting tap water here in my student halls, too. The only way to make it palatable is to just leave the tap running for 10-20 seconds before filling up your cup/kettle. So I do this. The water is still a little gross - I wouldn't drink a cup of water from it, I'd need to add some juice or tea or whatever to it first. Sometimes there are also flakes of limescale or something that come out the tap. I took a sip of that once and it almost made me become Physically Sick.
I went to a student union meeting a while back where they were talking about reducing the selection of bottled water in union run shops around campus and making sturdy water bottles available etc along with a couple more water dispensers. It seemed like a good idea to me. If I was the type of guy to drink water and go for runs or do a sports, I'd definitely use the water fountains.
I'm curious to know just how the price tag of bottled water adds up. I mean everyone knows WHAT A RIP OFF MAN but I want to know how much of a rip off. Sure, 90% for the bottle and the label but how much is profit margin.
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I like my water how I like my women: chalky as fuck. Round here it's chalky as fuck. We got a lot of chalk in the ground hence the white cliffs of dover and I like it.
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you guys live in some filthy fucking places huh.
also mark is your sig an odd but interesting quote.
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i live in the 2nd cheapest option for student halls so i guess that water de-cloudifier is the first thing to go when you're on a budget. they've got better quality stuff in the other halls.
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Nah I saw it on a games forum somewhere. The formatting was already like that and I thought whoa that's a pretty odd thing to say but interesting too
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I've got cloudy/disgusting tap water here in my student halls, too. The only way to make it palatable is to just leave the tap running for 10-20 seconds before filling up your cup/kettle. So I do this. The water is still a little gross - I wouldn't drink a cup of water from it, I'd need to add some juice or tea or whatever to it first. Sometimes there are also flakes of limescale or something that come out the tap. I took a sip of that once and it almost made me become Physically Sick.
yeah, this is how it is in my dorms, i don't mind using it with oatmeal or soup or something but drinking it is beyond disgusting, and letting the tap run for a while doesn't help any...sometimes i wonder if there's even a reason to take a shower considering i'll just smell like this gross water
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get a pot, boil your goddamn water and save the critters
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not possible unless i microwave it
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it's called an electric kettle
new zealand has some of the best drinking water in the world and we still buy bottled water like it's going out of fashion. i used to get one of them and refill it until the bottle looked scungy but then they changed the bottle design because they were starting fires so now i use other bottles. the end.
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I just piss in my mouth when I'm thirsty
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it's called an electric kettle
for the amount of water i drink that's not worth the price
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you don't drink water??
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I refill my big drinking water bottles at the co-op and take a big water bottle to work with me and make sure I drink all of it.
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Individual bottles of water are for suckas
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you don't drink water??
i drink it pretty often at home but mostly at school i drink soda or milk
i seriously NEED to drink more water tho
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I drink tap water no matter how cloudy
only thing that matters to me is overall temperature tbh
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I drink around 1 gallon of water per day. But I use the same bottle...
I just refill my bottle at the gym, school or home (filtered water).
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I drink bottled water but I can't justify it since I don't really care about the difference in taste or quality from my tap!
I just kind of do. Sorry environment!
Maybe I'll go find a permanent bottle or something tomorrow.