water, water everywhere

Saw this the other day and I can’t decide if it’s a good idea, or just a gimmicky one. It’s a cup that comes with a water filter so that people can just fill it straight from the tap and drink it right away. I looked at a couple of blogs that seem to think it’s a nice idea because it encourages people not to buy bottled water (which are mostly imported and produce a lot of waste plastic). One cartridge can filter up to 60 liters of water (that would make 30 2-liter bottles), so if the cartridge is recyclable (Brita ones are I think), then its definitely a good idea.

Whatever, it is probably a better idea than buying this…

This Keiju water (image from here: www.mrpartner.co.jp) is from the Tateyama mountains (one of the few bottled waters that is not imported at least), which is apparently renowned for good water. It is now being affiliated with Keiju medical institution and advertised as so. Kind of makes me feel a bit uneasy that people are being encouraged to buy water by affiliating it to a medical institution. But there seems to a lot of that going on right now: Doctor’s menus in restaurants, bento packed lunches with real doctor’s approval labeling, etc. On the one hand it looks like a decent promotion of healthy products. On the other, the stuff being promoted as healthy appear to be really ordinary products that have simply been packaged differently, endorsed and increased in price…