After BIGFOOTHILL visited Sungai Juru recreation park, I became more aware of the No Plastics Campaign around the world and in particular, my home state Penang in Malaysia. I am distressed by what I saw especially the floating empty plastic bottles flowed and trapped at the Sungai Juru river entrapment. I came across the story of bottled water from the website E-dump which have it by the side of its page. I am interested to have this Story of Bottled Water 瓶裝水的故事 (created by Annie Leonard who created the Story of Stuff Project) added to my blog to create the awareness and help to make Bukit Mertajam or Big Foot Hill a..k.a "Tua Shua Kha"(in Chinese Hokkien) a town in Penang to be part of the campaign to make Penang the first green state in Malaysia.
I did not realize that I have been contributing to the pollution by being an ignorant consumer as I used to grab a bottle of bottled water at the local coffee shop for my drink as I go there to watch English Premier League(EPL) Football matches on the live television broadcast thinking that I it is safe for my health instead of drinking other drinks and that the shop will recycle the empty bottle. I use to order mineral water and the shop assistant being hired from another country could not understand 'mineral' water always ended up giving me the drinking bottled water. Cannot blame him either as there are so many brands and type of bottled water (Reverse osmosis(RO), Minerals, Drinking and Carbonated) in the market to choose from.
The best way is to stop consuming bottled water totally from now onwards to ensure I play my part. Let us be responsible for our action. I urge you to share this message with our friends as we can have greater and faster impact to heal our hurting environment from this very day.
We can see many bottled water in plastic bottles with house brand being provided at hotels and restaurants for guests staying at the hotels and at the conferences and seminars at their venues. We need to get the hotels to play their parts too by offering drinking waters in stainless steel pots or tanks where we can pour or fill our own cups and glasses. There are so many other events such as wedding, birthday and house warming parties, lunch and dinners and even at funerals where the bottled water in plastic bottles or cups are being distributed.
To begin with, the Penang State government will have to ensure they take the lead and the NGOs give their full supports and actively campaign with the local community. So the government functions will also have to ensure that they stop providing drinking bottled water from January 2011 to take one step further.
We need the supermarkets, hypermarkets,convenience stores, the fast foods chains, restaurants and coffee shops to not only stop providing plastics bags from January 2011. We need them to STOP selling bottled water. If we are made to pay twenty sen for the plastic bag on no plastic bag days, it will be fair to consumer and coffee shop to just provide a glass of drinking water at twenty sen. Easily a bottled water would cost RM1.00(Ringgit Malaysia one only) which is 400 times profit. Would anyone of us want to buy a loaf of bread or a packet of famous Malaysia food called "Nasi Lemak" which is a Malaysian favorite breakfast food made of steamed rice in coconut milk top-up with curry anchovy and hard-boiled and garnished with cucumber slices costing 400 times more than it is worth its value?
After all, our Penang State through its state-owned company Perbadanan Bekalan Air (PBA) is known to have produced the cleanest water in Malaysia and also the cheapest tariff. There are eatery outlets that charge RM0.50( Fifty sen) for a cup of plain drinking water as they do not provide free drinking water. The funny thing is many of us would think that the fifty sen for a cup of drinking water is expensive compared to the bottled water which is merely the packaging and advertisement that dubbed us into thinking that it is worth paying for. The worst thing that happens is that we are being made the culprit that contributes towards the pollution of our environment by our demand for such bottled water.
Mind you, if any of us are to be careful to check on the label of the bottled water, most will realize that the drinking water source is tap water like one particular brand that came from the state of Selangor. I did thought of making money from bottling water from tap water supplied by PBA by just getting some filters and do the reverse osmosis and shared that idea with a friend of mine as I came across a local coffee shop also had its own brand of drinking water which is sold at RM1.00. Anyway, there is the need to get the licensing and the relevant health authorities to approve it. So it seems in Malaysia, the government has the power to enforce the law of banning such practice of bottling drinking water.
We become more aware of the environment as see these images of bottled water doing damages to our Mother Earth.
You can watch the videos on BigFootHill Video Bar on the side bar or click here for link to The Story of Bottled Water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0&feature=channel
You can get more on how to help realize a green environment with Annie Leonard on the link below:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM&feature=channel
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