Regarding plastic bottles of water and tour

[Guest guest]

I sent an email to the rumoured source of the "ban" on plastic

bottles of water on tour and will probably hear more soon.

 

Although at first I was a little surprised since like most of you, I

carry my plastic water bottle around, I remembered our trip to

Kerala in 2001. The tourists that Kerala wanted were coming and

buying bottled water since they were afraid to drink the locally

available water. One result was that there was a growing problem of

plastic bottles everwhere. In Kerala there is no garbage truck that

comes around. People burn their trash. In the capital city, there

is a haze over everything from this burning. Plastic bottles, when

burned emit toic fumes.

 

By contrast, at the school in the small village of Arunmula where

we stayed, quart-sized plastic bottles were washed, sterilized and

filled with filtered, boiled and cooled water every day. We each

would pick up our new clean bottle of pure water daily. No worries,

no plastic garbage.

 

Imagining a situation where there are thousands--perhaps tens of

thousands, of people coming to see Amma, the problem of what to do

with thousands of plastic bottles is a real issue, especially in

India, but also here in the US. Ten thousand plastic bottles is a

lot of plastic. In some cities, plastic is not recycled. Plastic

doesn't degrade into anything nice in landfill either.

 

I can understand the reason for a ban and I hear lots of reaction

building up. We are all thinking only of our own need for water

rather than the size of the crowds coming to Amma. More will be

revealed shortly.

 

Aikya