Drink Tap Water

In FY 2009, BIDMC used ~ 35,000 bottles of water for catering and ~70,000 on patient floors. In addition, 117 departments got their water from bottle-fed coolers. We are now working to change this.
 

Why We are Changing

  • An identical, if not safer product, is availble right from our tap.

    • The MWRA tests for 227 contaminents and publishes its results on its website.
    • According to recent articles in the NY Times and CNN, bottled water companies are required to do less testing than municipal water supplies, and they don't have to notify the public if contaminents are found.
  • Tap water tastes good. In a blind taste test here at BIDMC, 60% of the participants preferred the taste of tap water to that of bottled water and another 15% had no preference. This means we are currently buying water that was only preferred by 25% of the participants.
  • Fuel is needed to truck water from a bottling plant to a distribution site and then on to BIDMC in trucks that average 6-7mpg. Dasani travels 29 miles from Westboro, MA. Poland Springs travels 122  miles from Poland, ME.

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