An Analysis Of Tom Standage 's ' Bad And The Last Drop '

At the beginning of the 1970s, two men, by the names of Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro, met and started an extremely successful and world renowned string of movie director/actor collaborations. Over the course of 22 years,spawning from 1973, with their first film Mean Streets, to 1995, with their most recent work Casino, the duo paired up for 8 movies, most of which are considered some of the greatest films of all time. The most notable, however, would have to be their 1990 movie Goodfellas, a classic film which was nominated for 6 oscars, winning one, and named the greatest film of all time by British film magazine Total Film, an organized crime movie which is one of my favorite movies.

The economy is hurt when people spend money on bottled water, which in fact tastes the same as tap water, but costs much more. Not only do people waste money on water that tastes the same as tap, but they waste money on water that helps destroy the environment. Not only does bottled water cost more, but it takes money away that could be used to help upgrade and provide cleaner tap water. People would like to save money, but they spend it on bottled water which tie in with tap water. “Nearly 40 percent of bottled water is simply filtered water filled in a bottle. Humans pay 1900 times

John “Crash” Coogan is the typical jock; he lives in Pennsylvania and is starting his second year of middle school as a 7th grader. I thought the main theme of the book is don’t judge a book by its cover. At least what most of us have in mind as a jock? Crash had always picked on his neighbor Penn Webb because of his choices and his lifestyle until later he realized something about Penn that he was his meant- to- be best friend. Crash has a wonderful life, until life deals him a hand that he could not have expected. When Crash 's grandfather unexpectedly has a stroke, Crash instinctively steps back and re-evaluates his life without even realizing he 's doing it. Suddenly, his cool friend, Mike doesn’t seem so cool anymore. Things that

The Novel “Left For Dead” was written by Pete Nelson. It was about a young man’s

Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the contrary, several individuals do not know the cons of drinking bottled water. Today, there are many misconceptions and myths about bottled water. Many people are uneducated about what goes into our bottles and how it not only affects us but also our environment. In the article “The New Oil” by Jeneen Interlandi and Ryan Tracy they discuss the issues that have to do with water and the privatization of it. They believe there is a crisis and something has to be done. Due to the cost, pollution, shortage, and health issues, bottled water should be outlawed. Water should not be controlled by water bottle companies and should not be allowed to be sold in plastic bottles.

Author Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism at Buffalo State College. In his article “Bottled Insanity," Niman claims that the rage for imported bottled water is unnecessary. Niman argues that people in America are “mad” for Fiji Water because they are “being sold a fantasy. A moment in Fiji. A taste of Fiji”. The author describes how this craze for “designer water” is negatively effecting our environment. According to the Niman, to transport a bottle of water from Fiji to Western New York State requires packing the water into cardboard boxes made from rain forest trees, loading the bottles onto trucks that require gasoline that are driven to a cargo ships powered by fossil fuels, which are then shipped to The United States, and again loaded onto trains and trucks and transported all across the country, then from the warehouses the bottles are delivered everywhere you buy Fiji Water. The author supports his claim that this infatuation of “designer water” is “bottled insanity” by informing the reader that this process “threatens the very existence of the tropical paradise” because of how it is negatively effecting Fiji including the island’s “chronic water shortage”. In continuation, Niman brings up the fact that where he lives, in Western New York State he is fairly close to both the great lakes and Adirondack mountain aquifers. In addition, the author reveals that his region already has “some of the best water on the planet”. Overall, according to Niman the

Tom Standage in his article “Bad to The Last Drop” claimed that tap water is more beneficial than bottled water. At the start of the article the author described a tasting experiment he conducted with his friends to see whether they can distinguish between tap and bottled water. This experiment involved 10 bottles of water (one was filled with tap water), which were evaluated based on taste, appearance, smell, and feel. Considering how only one person was able to recognize which one was the tap water, he concluded that most people cannot differentiate between the two waters. Additionally, Standage mentioned a study from The Archives of Medicine, which demonstrated that bottled water has more bacteria than tap water. Also, he included

argued that bottled water is “morally unacceptable” – the discomforting fact while having perfectly good tap water, the UK spends almost $2 billion pounds on bottled water, “its treated as a luxury bauble while others die from its absence”. The Fiji Water Company, LLC provides some water to surrounding villages after cyclones and flash flooding, it also provides some funding towards clean water projects across the islands, but the company is not responsible for the islander’s water supply (Heap, 2008). Fiji Water’s good works are more hope than reality. Two years after a riot at the water plant, the Vatukaloko Trust Fund was created, a charity targeting several villages surrounding the plant, agreed to donate .15 percent of its Fijian operation’s revenues, a company official testified that the total was about $100,000 in 2007 (for perspective, the trade journal Brandweek put Fiji Water’s marketing budget at $10 million in 2008) (Lenzer, 2009). The aforementioned presents an ethical issue with Fiji Water profiting from freshwater pumped from the aquifer, then exported and marketed as a luxury product, meanwhile the people of Fiji are getting sicker in certain cases dying from the lack of it. This can be viewed as controversial and moral contextual issue; under Applied Ethics the normative principles that can be argued are Social Benefit, Principle of Benevolence, and the Principle of Paternalism. Next, an additional concern arises, the

In Peter Gleick’s “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show” and Cynthia Barnett’s “Business in a Bottle”, bottled water is argued to be an excessive commodity falsely advertised as healthier and more beneficial than tap water to society and the environment. Both authors discuss that bottled water is actually equivalent in quality to tap water and in some cases even more hazardous to the human body. Public water itself is a less expensive resource that is more accessible to the masses. However, due to fraudulent companies focused on profit and the lack of effective oversight, people are deterred from realizing that there does not need to be an alternative to municipal water. Gleick

Op-ed New York Times contributor Tom Standage 's article“Bad to the Last Drop” has stated that people spend too much money on buying bottled water. What they don 't know is the difference between bottled and tap water. People buy bottled water because they think it 's safer to drink. What they don’t know is that bottled water is bad for the environment. Bottled water manufacturers begin by putting the water into plastic bottles which then is shipped from one part of the world to another and then kept refrigerated before they sell it. Not only that, but people around the world are lacking safe drinkable water and are dying of water-borne diseases. Bottled water is a problem and people should stop spending money on such an unnecessary product. Instead, they should give that money to water charities. Standage effectively argues that bottled water is not good for the environment nor for the people.

The chapter “Selling Bottled Water”, by Peter Gleick, works within the argument of Cynthia Barnett’s “Business in a Bottle”, which illustrates the superficial and deceptive image of bottled water, due to false advertising and pseudoscientific claims by greedy bottling companies. The companies take advantage of a free resource and make millions in profit. Although utilizing different styles, Gleick and Barnett’s grounds intertwine, exposing bottling companies’ manipulative tricks while opening the population’s eyes to the lie that bottled water is cleaner, healthier, and safer than tap water. Barnett focuses on specific bottling companies’ data and incorporates statistics for support, while Gleick separates his argument into various segments and provides a brief historical lesson on false advertising; these techniques expose the psychological effect of false advertising in the population and neatly organize the information proving false advertising exists.

Tom Standage’s essay “Bad to the Last Drop first appeared in the New York Times” (pages 662-664) on the first of August, 2005. In his essay, Standage argues that we, as a society, should do away with bottled water. He justifies his stance with several points including the shear monetary cost to the consumer, the lack of any nutritional benefit in bottled water, and even his results in a “water tasting”, a parody of a wine tasting which he partook in with the help of a few of his friends. By far, one of Tom’s strongest points, though, is the plight of impoverished nations around the world and their lack of clean water. One can almost feel his contempt for the seeming hypocrisy of first-world countries and their rejection of their perfectly adequate tap water, especially in the face of such global need. He demonizes the “illogical enthusiasm” with which wealthy nations turn up their noses at tap water. But in the midst of his tirade, he makes sure to pardon developing countries as bottled water is often times the cleanest water available to them. As his final point, Standage concludes that the most reasonable thing for the populace of developed nations to do, in light of the deficiency of water in other countries, is to cease consumption of bottled water and send that money to water charities instead.

Have you ever had any concerns about bottled water? Do you think that bottled water consumption should be banned? Bottled water is water packed in plastic containers and sold for human consumption (Health Canada, 2013). Currently, the amount of bottled water consumed has increased considerably since many people feel it is safer drinking bottled water than tap water (Parent and Wrong, 2014). According to The Statistics Portal, the global sale of bottled water took a leap from 161, 589 to 181, 608 liters from 2009 to 2011. Only in the United States, each American citizen consumed around 32 gallons of bottled water in 2013, thus meaning an equivalent growth of 15, 94% over 2009 (The Statistics Portal, 2014). In fact, due to good portability, bottled water has been helpful in both simple and complex situations such as daily exercises and natural disasters. Even though having those few considerable advantages, bottled water still have been less beneficial; especially due to the negative impacts in the socio-economic, health and environmental fields.

Life springs up around water sources. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest civilizations have been build need fertile bodies of water. Known life relies on water to sustain that life. So it is no surprise when a debate arose in 2013 around comments made by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck regarding privatization of water and the fundamental human right to survive from dehydration and illness from non-portal water consumption. Although the context of Brabeck’s comment was taken out of context, issues surrounding the access companies like Nestlé have been given to bottle their water when people do not have access to clean water and droughts are threatening crop production. Adding a price tag is not the answer. The market, both these companies and their consumers have a major role to play in the management of water; a role that requires a change in mindset of privilege many citizen of the United States, and other countries that do not see the direct effects that serious clean water issue have on people that do not have it.

Arnold, E 2006, ‘Bottled water drains natural resources’, Earth Policy Institute, 1 April , viewed 22 Octobe