Category: Archive

Canberra nervous about recycled water

admin /5 August, 2007

According to Angela Shanahan in The Australian (21/7/07, p. 29), now the ACT’s Stanhope Government has proposed drawing on federal funds to introduce recycled sewage into the ACT’s potable supply.

Would be highest proportion of recycled of large cities: This would start at nine gigalitres, rising to 20GL or 40 per cent of the potable water, which, it was believed, would be the highest proportion of recycled sewage of any large city in the world. So naturally someone asked the question, "Would you drink recycled sewage?" "We would have," they replied in unison, "until we heard Peter Collignon on the radio."

Microbiologist Collignon vehemently opposed to idea: Australian National University Professor Collignon, a microbiologist and head of the infectious diseases and microbiology unit at the Canberra Hospital, is one of Australia’s toremost experts in infection control. If anyone knew about bugs, it was Collignon, and he was vehemently opposed to Canberra using recycled sewage in its drinking water. He has expressed his opinion in The Canberra Times and in an interview on local ABC radio, when he enumerated the risks.

Pepsi admits to selling tap water

admin /5 August, 2007

by Mike Adams

It’s a great marketing gimmick: A bottle of water with a clean, blue label showing images of snow-capped mountains and the claim, "Pure water, perfect taste." That’s the image created by Pepsico’s Aquafina brand of water, and many consumers leap to the incorrect conclusion that Aquafina is sourced from mountain spring water.

In reality, Aquafina comes from tap water. Yes, the same water you get when you turn on your kitchen faucet. Of course, Aquafina is filtered, purified and perhaps even enhanced with trace amounts of added minerals, but it’s certainly not mountain spring water. It’s just processed tap water — the same stuff that fills your toilet bowl when you flush.

Both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the FDA believe there’s really no need to require bottled water manufacturers to admit their products come from tap water. No surprise there — both these organizations routinely act to protect the interests of powerful corporations, and when it comes to bottled water, the biggest companies are often those sourcing the lowest quality water (such as tap water).

This idea that consumers should not be informed their high-priced bottled water is really just filtered tap water is consistent with the aims of food, drug and beverage corporations, who almost universally agree that consumers should be given less information, not more, about the products they’re swallowing. Over the last several decades, corporations have vigorously opposed truth in labeling laws and regulations, including those requiring the labeling of trans fatty acids, sodium content and even ingredients lists! (If the food corporations had their way, all ingredients would be considered "proprietary formulas" and not listed on the label at all.)

Military sonar threatens whales around the world

admin /1 August, 2007

Ear-splitting military sonar is needlessly threatening whales and other marine mammals throughout the world’s oceans. Yet the U.S. Navy has resisted legal requirements to put safeguards in place during peacetime testing and training to protect marine life. In response to this dangerous breach of US bedrock environmental laws, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is Continue Reading →

Libs/ALP champion logging despite green rhetoric

admin /1 August, 2007

by Don Henry, The Canberra Times WANTED: Major political party prepared to stand up for Tasmania’s world-renowned old-growth forests. Last week, politicians returned their attention to forests. We had Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull telling a conference in Sydney about the Federal Government’s commitment to protecting forests, stopping deforestation and encouraging sustainable forestry as a way Continue Reading →

Enrol to Vote

admin /1 August, 2007

The rule has changed   

Desalination: option for a thirsty world?

admin /31 July, 2007

Making drinking water out of sea water could lead to the destruction of prized coastal areas, according to a new global report by WWF. The growing trend in some of the world’s driest countries, like Australia, to build desalination plants as a solution to water shortages, comes under scrutiny in the report released in June. Continue Reading →