Tap in to big savings by switching from bottled water

Tap in to big savings by switching from bottled water
BY JOSHUA CINELLI DAILY NEWS WRITER
Wednesday, June 18th 2008, 10:52 AM

Drinking water from the tap costs pennies a year vs. thousands for the bottled variety.
Gasoline isn't the only liquid draining New Yorkers' budgets - water can cost plenty for those who insist on drinking the bottled variety.
Last year, U.S. consumers purchased $16.8 billion of bottled water. The cost of drinking the recommended 64 ounces of water a day from bottles could total thousands of dollars for one person. By contrast, drinking a healthy supply from the tap costs just 51 cents a year, according to The Associated Press.
"In New York City, the water is the best," said Andre Aubry, a 61-year-old construction worker from Bedford Park in the Bronx. "I'm not going to pay anything for water."
Aubry, who fills up a cooler every night from the tap, said there's another good reason to avoid drinking from plastic bottles.
"All bottled water is doing is creating more garbage," he said.
Environmentalists have railed against bottled water for years based on the estimated 17 million barrels of oil used every year to make the bottles, and the fact that they don't break down in landfills. Other efforts such as the Tappening Project and Think Outside the Bottle have urged Americans to choose reusable containers.
In the city, Mayor Bloomberg is an ardent advocate of tap water, drinking it at home and in restaurants. This weekend, Bloomberg will co-sponsor a resolution in Miami at the U.SConference of Mayors to prohibit city spending on bottled water.
The City Council has stopped buying bottled water, joining 30 other cities nationwide. Instead, it has begun to provide water coolers that use filtered tap water. Last year, the Council's downtown offices went through 6,000 bottles of water.
Still, some say bottled water is all they drink.
"All that's in the fridge is bottled water," said Joseph Acquah of Flatbush, Brooklyn

Grocers with beef sue union butchers

Grocers with beef sue union butchers
BY JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, June 8th 2008, 4:00 AM

Three supermarket chains want millions in damages from a union they say ordered butchers to urge customers to buy fresh hamburger patties instead of frozen meat.

Lawyers for Pathmark, Waldbaum and The Food Emporium have responded aggressively to what they called a Memorial Day weekend scare campaign in which brochures distributed outside their stores suggested frozen meat may have been lying around warehouses for years.

"The statement that by buying fresh meat, 'customers never have to wonder how old fresh meat and hamburger patties are,' is a clear reference that customers should worry that frozen patties are old," says the suit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Further, the handbill is "defamatory and libelous" because it suggests the supermarkets were selling outdated meat.

Leaflets were distributed outside stores in New York City and Long Island from May 23 to May 26.

The union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 342, contends the leafleting was simply an attempt to drum up business because meat department workers' hours have been curtailed.

Several union members were disciplined or suspended for handing out the leaflets, union lawyer Ira Wincott said.

"We weren't telling customers not to buy anything, and we believe their sales actually increased that weekend over last year's sales, which we attribute to the handbill," Wincott said.

A copy of the handbill, attached to the suit, asks: "Why buy frozen patties shipped in from who knows where? Who knows how long they have been laying around a warehouse? Frozen meat may have been frozen for years
From ----newyorkdailynews.com 6-8-2008 p 15