Vermont Government Offices Deal With Bottled Water Issues
The state of Vermont is considering a plan to get rid of bottled water services to all state government offices.
Naturally, this has many state employees quite upset. Many do not have on-site access to water that is fit for consumption. The state argues that spending “more than $200,000 annually” on bottled water while millions have already been spent on public water treatment makes no sense. They’ve also tested water at 8 different office locations and determined the water to be potable.
The state is also looking to do the right thing from an environmental perspective, in addition to saving money. They make the obvious point that many chemicals go into the the process of making the plastic for the water coolers. However, they did not make the obvious distinction between the large, durable plastic water jugs that are reused and the common smaller plastic disposable water bottle. So while they mention the environment, their main concern is largely monetary, and that’s fine. It would be better if they were to just focus on their economic concerns, as that seems to be the primary issue here.
Both sides seem to be completely unaware of any other options. The best solution in this case is one that has already been adopted by many different types of businesses and office environments. It simply involves the installation of a high-capacity water filter that can provide filtered water throughout an office. There would, of course, be costs involved with this change but it would be considerably less than paying for a water delivery service.
Another option would be for states like Vermont to actively seek out a mutually beneficial relationship with a home water filtration company like Aquasana. The state could work out a deal to purchase a large number of filters from the company at a discounted price and pass the savings on to state employees. Office workers can simply take their home filtered water with them to work. They would obviously also have the benefit of having access to this water away from work as well.
The second option would require that enough employees are willing to spend some of their own money for their own home water filters. This would not be an issue once people realize the many benefits they would gain with this plan. They would save money on water away from work, gain a more convenient way to get water, and maybe even become a little healthier.
There’s no question that many, if not all states are still suffering financially from the recent recession. The challenge that our elected officials have are considerable. With such large budget deficits, many officials are faced with cutting some very basic and crucial public programs. Ideally they will strive to always do the right thing and protect those that need the most help.
I think that this story is a grey area. As important as clean drinking water is, state employees do have reasonable options – like bringing water from home. These difficult times are calling for all of us to pitch in a little more and find new ways to work together. Hopefully that idea will catch on.