Daily Greenz #108

Bottled water may be a thing of the past, if ecogastronomic restaurateur Alice Waters has anything to say about it.  When she struck bottled water off her menu last year, many New York restaurants scrambled to do the same, offering their customers the choice of filtered tap water instead.  Though many might wrinkle their noses at the idea of drinking tap water with their haute cuisine, however, restaurants’ sophisticated filtration systems actually often produce better quality water than many bottled water counterparts.  For this service, they’re tacking on a small “sustainability surcharge” that, though as cheap as free tap water, costs less than bottled water.

For example, Bobo in the West Village uses Natura, an Italian water purification system that uses a carbon filter and UV light to kill any bacteria.  It can also add fizz to create sparkling water.  Both flat and sparkling water costs $1 to cover the cost of purification, but any overage is donated directly to Charity: Water to build wells in Africa.  Meanwhile, Gottino, located in the same neighborhood, scoffs at the idea of charging customers for their filtered water.  Their filtration system uses reverse osmosis, which cleans impurities using intense pressure to push water through a membrane.  Sparkling is also available.

We ecoists are incredibly excited by this new development and hope it’s the start of a slow death for bottled water companies everywhere.  Has your favorite haunt jumped on the bandwagon?  If not, leverage your support by suggesting that they make the eco-savvy switch.  It’s one that’ll help the environment and their business costs in the long run.

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