The Providence College Student Congress is helping to reduce the use of plastic bottles. Starting next fall all clubs and organizations will be required to ban bottled water at all events. (Brown University has already joined other ivy league colleges in taking similar steps.)

Further, the students at PC are urging the establishment of 17 “hydration stations” on campus. Jeez, how thirsty are these kids? They don’t need water, they need insulin.

I thought everybody knew by now that the “eight glasses a day” canard was a fraud perpetrated by the water-bottling industry. It’s been totally debunked; there is no evidence to support the claim and there never was (HuffPo). Bottled water is a waste of your money and harms the environment. And Providence tap water is some of the best in the country.

The second best way to quench your thirst in Providence? Tap water. The 2011 Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) from the Providence Water Supply Board (PWSB) has been arriving in mailboxes around town. Thousands of water samples are tested every year and the Scituate Reservoir is still cranking out the good stuff. (Elevated levels of lead triggered an earlier mailing, but this is more a problem of contact with old pipes and plumbing components. Lead pipe water service connections are being replaced all over to help with that, and there are things you can do in your own home.)

But here is the part of the brochure I find galling; the section “Tap vs. Bottled Water” starts,

Did you know that if you drank your recommended eight glasses of water a day from bottled water, it would cost up to $1400 for a year’s supply? That same amount of tap water would cost only about $0.50.

While I am thrilled to have people examining their bottled water purchases, can we once and for all put a stake through the heart of this “eight glasses of water a day” myth.  Who exactly has been “recommending” this?  Are there any scientific medical studies backing up this claim? No, it is the purveyors of bottled water who keep this going. (HuffPo 7.14.11)

The health recommendation to drink six to eight glasses of water a day is “thoroughly debunked nonsense,” a doctor wrote this week in a commentary in the British Medical Journal.

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We’ve discussed the evils of bottled water before. And now Frank Carini over at ecoRI News has renewed the call to end the use of bottled water, including over on Smith Street.

We challenge our elected officials to stop spending about $18,000 annually to provide bottled water at the Statehouse. Thirsty senators and representatives can bring a reusable mug to work and fill it with renowned Providence tap water.

In fact, we challenge all state agencies and institutions to stop the unnecessary purchase of water in plastic bottles, unless in an emergency or if there are special health circumstances.

And why not? According to Walter Splash here, Providence water is ranked second in the nation in water quality. So why are we shipping the stuff in and and dumping more plastic into the environment (remember, every piece of plastic ever made still exists). And this is where we always urge you to read “Polymers are Forever” by Alan Weisman and find out how tiny nurdles of plastic are becoming a pervasive feature of the ocean food chain.