The water problem

No, this post isn't going to be about the couple of times I've gotten up in the morning and had no running water in the apartment, but I could see why you might think it would be. (Maybe that topic will be saved for a different post titled "Indoor Plumbing: Right or Privilege?")

This post is about bottled water, or more specifically, the bottles the bottled water comes in.

Before T and I came to Morocco, we did a lot of research on food and water safety. All official advice says "don't drink the water!" but that seems to be blanket advice given to people traveling from the U.S. to any poorer country--which, as far as I can tell, includes all of Africa, Asia, South America, and North America south of the U.S. border. When we sought advice from individuals who had actually traveled to and/or lived in Morocco, though, most told us they drank the water without problems. Nevertheless, we decided we would start with bottled water, move to boiled tap water, and then slowly start integrating straight tap water to allow our systems to adjust.

When I started trying to add boiled tap water, however, I discovered two things about it. First, it is so high in mineral content that there are white specks and white sediment in the water after boiling it. (I have read that these minerals can cause health problems for people who didn't grow up drinking such water.) Second, the water tastes absolutely horrible. It has a chlorine taste that both T and I find unbearable. When we were trying to do tap water rather than bottled, we just didn't drink anything. Not good.

The environmentally offensive Mr. Ali

And so we persist in our environmentally-destructive consumption of bottled water. We buy it in 6-packs of 1.5 liter bottles and go through at least two of those 6-packs a week. There is no recycling center to take the numerous empty bottles to in order to help placate our consciences. Every couple of days I throw the bottles in the garbage bin outside Building 31, with a sick feeling in my stomach.

What happens to those bottles after I throw them away? Do they get picked out of the dump and reused in some manner (this happens with many items that are thrown away in poor countries)? Do they get burned, releasing toxic chemicals into the air?

In some ways, I think my negative impact on the environment is lower than it was when I lived in the states. My home here is smaller, so energy consumption should be less. I walk almost everywhere rather than driving, and when I do go places, I'll be taking public transportation. I am buying fewer food items in disposable containers. Most things I buy that would be in plastic, glass, or aluminum containers in the States are given to me here wrapped in bits of newspaper.

But am I just listing these things in order to make myself feel better about my unjustifiable and wasteful consumption of a non-biodegradable product made from non-renewable resources?

What choice do we have? What is the balance between personal health and environmental health?

Difficult questions.