Bottle This: In a promising-looking new feature on the Salon web site called "Ask Pablo," environmental engineer Pablo Päster provides some statistics-packed straight talk a the ecological impacts of bottled water.

 

On this issue I remain a staunch fence-sitter. For daily thirst quenching, I´m a fan of drinking fountains and reusable bottles filled with tap water. But I´m not above buying a bottle of the commercial stuff now and then, mainly on days when I forget to bring my refillable bottle with me.

 

I imagine one of these days I´ll have a conscience attack and stop buying the bottled stuff altogether. Especially if the Pable Pästers of the world keep hectoring me with data like this that makes such purchases, however infrequent, awfully hard to justify.

 

Taking Back E in NYC: Newsday ran an editorial yesterday endorsing an e-waste bill being considered by the New York City Council.

 

The measure, sponsored by Councilman Bill de Blasio, would require electronics makers to devise free systems for taking back and recycling their products. The bill "wisely" doesn´t tell manufacturers how to do this; instead it "relies on their business sense to create workable models," the editorial states.

 

Newsday further notes that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has questioned a portion of the bill that sets performance standards requiring manufacturers to show they are recycling increasing percentages of the products they sell. The newspaper´s editors disagree with Bloomberg on this point, arguing that removing the performance standards "would seriously weaken, if not kill, the legislation´s effectiveness."

 

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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