Today - March 22nd - was World Water Day, which we marked at the State House with a briefing by the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign on how we can restore public confidence in our water supply, end unnecessary state spending on bottled water, and reinvest in our public water supplies.

At the briefing, we saw a preview of a new video explaining the bottled water problem and how demand for the product has become “manufactured” over time:

Massachusetts spends a little more than half a million dollars a year on bottled water for state offices and public events. At a time when the nation’s public water systems are facing a $24 billion shortfall, and our water infrastructure here in Massachusetts is severely underfunded, we can’t afford to spend scarce public dollars on bottled water - an unnecessary use of the most essential public resource.

Over the years, bottled water corporations like Coke, Nestle and Pepsi have become very good at convincing us that the only place to get clean, safe water is from a bottle. But the fact is that tap water is as clean — and in many cases, cleaner — than bottled water, without the serious social & environmental impacts.

As a result of this marketing by bottled water companies,  people across the country are losing confidence in public tap water, even though bottled water is less regulated than tap water.

The Think Outside the Bottle campaign aims to counteract this push by bottled water corporations by educating the public about the problems of bottled water and promoting the use of clean, safe, public tap water instead. I’m proud to support their efforts.

As part of that, myself and others are calling upon Governor Patrick to end unnecessary state spending on bottled water, switching to tap water as a show of confidence and reinvesting the savings - more than half a million a year - in improve public water systems.

Ending this unnecessary spending, as well as passing the Expanded Bottle Bill, are two ways our state can be part of the growing movement to reduce the use of environment-draining bottled water.