L'eau part Deux

Since my last post about bottled water, there have been some new developments. First and foremost, Tom (stage name T.L.) released a remix of the classic Biggie Smalls song "Juicy" - sample a lyric:

The Volvic and Acqua Panna keep me pissy
Girls used to diss me
Now they write letters cause they miss me
Birthdays was the worst days
Now we sip Feej when we thirst-ay

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So the "Juicy" remix was playing in my head in the shower this morning. I step out to dry off, walk to my window, and what do I see? A sign from the heavens...

















"Tanks Gawd!!" I exclaimed. But before I went so far as to buy that truckload of Fiji bottles, I decided I'd listen to a debate over the societal benefit of Fiji water. On the Con side was a growing number of journalists and environmental activists. On the Pro side was Beneficent Allah. Here is how it went down--

Pablo Paster, Treehugger.com, CON:

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles' journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation--which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity--something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from "one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth," as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.

Each water bottler has its own version of this oxymoron: that something as pure and clean as water leaves a contrail.

Beneficent Allah, beneficentallah.blogspot.com, PRO:

Feej is Straight Ballin', yo,
Espesh from tha Who-Fo!

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Well, as you can see for yourselves, the winner of the debate was obvious. I bought the truckload of Fiji, and I'm sippin' one now 'cause I'm thirs-tay. The only sad part of this whole saga is that Biggie's lips never got to feel the refreshment of a cold Feej, since the company only started shipping to the U.S. in late 1997. R.I.P., Biggie -- I'll pour a couple millileters out for mah dead homie right now...