Massaschusetts Town Bans Sale of Small Bottles of Water

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Originally Posted by earthJoker

Read my post again. Start with the cities, most US citizen live there. Make a list of most populous US states, and you see that most are quite dense.

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I wasn't disagreeing with you, just explaining how the US is different, and why there's still so much political disagreement here. ;)

Practically speaking, our 50 states often operate like 50 different nations. And within these states, densely populated cities don't necessarily dictate policy for its rural populations. Not for resource extraction, waste disposal, water safety.....super-sized sodas, Happy Meal toys, gas taxes....or even firearm regulations.

The debate about energy resources makes it pretty clear that rural areas, and less populated areas, rich in resources -- feel the fight is urban vs rural, state vs nation. It's a powerful issue that hasn't been covered very well by the media, or understood by legislators or even voters (who would vote their own interests above anything else) :(

This Do-or-Die attitude has been framed as us-or-them, win-or-lose, employment and jobs today, at all costs, with any/all costs paid by future generations. Drill baby, drill? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Loki

Well, I'm glad you've done a careful study to determine how accurate Swiss polls are.

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The first polls almost never equal the end result. The amount of undecided always declines during a campaign. You don't need a study to verify that. Even the poll publisher explicitly write this in any statistics. And the undecided don't spilt 50%/50% they tend to go towards the "no". This is one of the main reason why you can't compare it with a voting for people, the is no "no" option in parties.

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Originally Posted by GGT

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just explaining how the US is different, and why there's still so much political disagreement here. ;)

Practically speaking, our 50 states often operate like 50 different nations. And within these states, densely populated cities don't necessarily dictate policy for its rural populations. Not for resource extraction, waste disposal, water safety.....super-sized sodas, Happy Meal toys, gas taxes....or even firearm regulations.

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I live in a federal country myself. Garbage collection is not done the same way in every city here. Quite the opposite. It's a small country over here, but the needs of urban Zürich are totally different to the mountain village in the alps. The federal system is not the problem but the solution of the different needs. Of course there is a danger that some parts totally go off by far, that's where a federal law needs to set the limits.

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Originally Posted by earthJoker

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I live in a federal country myself. Garbage collection is not done the same way in every city here. Quite the opposite. It's a small country over here, but the needs of urban Zürich are totally different to the mountain village in the alps. The federal system is not the problem but the solution of the different needs. Of course there is a danger that some parts totally go off by far, that's where a federal law needs to set the limits.

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That's where our nations are different. The US has tons of anti-federal voters, most often in "red" states (Texas) but also in "blue" states with rural minorities (PA). It's ironic that our Republic, a Union of states, can have so many objections to national continuity and frame it as a states-rights vs federal power issue. :bulb:

Just to avoid confusion. Over here pro-federal means that the cantons have more to say, anti-federal means that the central government has more to say.
A federal solution is one were each state can adjust the rule to their local needs.

Yet another example of how our nations are different. :p

The nomenclature matters less than the motives or effects. I doubt that Switzerland would want one locality, citing "cantons" or "local needs", to engage in behaviors that could destroy national resources, or endanger all its citizens.

You can see bottled water everywhere. As more and more schools and organizations increase their efforts to "go green," the issue of bottled water gets more heated. Some states have already banned the use of it. Concord, Mass. is one of the areas that banned bottled water. It is not about the water, it is about the waste that every person has to pay attention to. Read more: Bottled water ban.

Amsterdam has several public watering points where you can fill up your bottle free of any charge. Funny thing is that they is no signage whatsoever so that the average tourist has no idea what they are.

Oh, and Amsterdam drinking water is really great.

Can't remember if this is the right thread for it but now taking bets on soda tax vote:

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/09/...omment-page-1/

Whatcha reckon, will they or won't they? :o

Maybe they should call for a tax on expensive wine, expensive cars, and expensive apartments instead. Or is going after poor people becoming a hobby of the limousine liberals?

They can use the tax to pay for more food stamps

Extra food stamps that will be used to buy the more expensive soda. Great rationale for implementing a new policy.

Ah but see, in terms of total numbers, more middle-class and wealthy people buy soda than do poor people, so it will lead to a transfer of wealth. This isn't about cigarettes after all :o anyway, the question was whether or not this'll be passed.

I'm actually not sure that's true.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Maybe they should call for a tax on expensive wine, expensive cars, and expensive apartments instead. Or is going after poor people becoming a hobby of the limousine liberals?

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I see this more as a tax equal to the excise on, say, tobacco, which is both to deter smoking since it is bad for your health, and to offset the extra costs for society it causes. Sugar is also bad for you, so I guess it's similar, but very arbitrary to take sugar, and nothing else.

Sugar is not bad for you in moderation; tobacco is. There's no equivalence here.

Minx, as the article indicated, if it can pass anywhere it would be the People's Republic of Berkeley.

For myself, you know I'm opposed to the idea of the "sin tax."

I don't oppose Berkley's effort to turn itself into a left-wing hellhole. Though I do generally oppose the idea of taxing certain industries just "'cause". And Robert Reich is an increasingly annoying pundit. Yes, a pundit. His public service experience gets less and less relevant.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

There is extensive infrastructure in place to deliver water from pipes. There is no such infrastructure in place to deliver sodas to every/many homes and businesses.

From an environmental perspective, the delivery of bottled water is hugely wasteful in terms of the energy spent to produce and ship those bottles.

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Water is a premium commodity. Public infrastructure was designed around water's inherent value....and plenty of soda manufacturers rode their way to profits using that water, often portraying corn syrup sweeteners against corn feed for animals, or water needs for the petroleum industry.

The truth is....no industry, people, or nation, can survive without potable water. Water is more valuable than the oil/petroleum products holding or carrying that water in plastic bags or bottles. I have no problem with towns or localities "banning" plastic by-products that don't optimize or conserve water supply.

See GGT, not everyone disagrees with you. :o

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Originally Posted by Flixy

Well, it may have been somewhat of an overstatement :p but it really was very chlorinated, which also makes everything that it's used in (icecubes, etc) rather gross. Over here tap water doesn't have any chlorine, but even compared to most countries I've been in, it was shit in the US. And IIRC, while I was there there was a story in the newspapers there too about how shitty the tap water was.

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Interesting! In the U.S., we're required to maintain a chlorine disinfectant residual between 0.2 and 4.0 mg/L in all parts of the distribution system. I'm working on a project right now (on the regulation side) where a 28-mile, 42-inch diameter water transmission pipeline in south Texas is unable to maintain the minimum chlorine residual near the end of its run. Now the water supplier is experiencing nitrification events, so I was pulled in to assist with modeling chloramine decay.

Sounds like an interesting project to work on :up: Over here chlorine is only used to clean pipes, not to clean (or keep clean) the water, resulting in nice tap water to drink :) I think one brand of mineral water here literally has the exact same water as comes out of the tap in an area of the Netherlands.