Thursday March 12, 2009 -- AMID the torrent of reports on the scourge of plastics, the burning question has been the public’s seemingly lackadaisical attitude towards helping to save the planet.

Every now and then, we’ve been told how the mountains of plastic bottles and bags foul our environment and pollute our seas.

Doesn’t it leave a nasty stench that plastic bags are used for hardly a few hours a day? Yet, they take hundreds of years to decompose. The same goes for plastic bottles and the like.

The fact that only three billion plastic bottles are recycled in Britain every year, while an incredible 10 billion more are thrown away, speak volumes of the shocking amount of plastic litter.

Let’s face it! The discarded plastics often end up in canals, rivers and oceans. They choke up our waterways as well as damage the environment and endanger marine wildlife.

And one report claimed that it required seven litres of water just to produce a single litre in a plastic bottle!

That’s food for thought. No wonder Britons are encouraged to ask for tap water in restaurants, instead of paying for expensive bottled water.

In one survey, half the population can’t even taste the difference between bottled and tap water while one in 5% actually preferred the flavour of tap water.

Of course, when it comes to the cost, there’s no comparison at all.

But let’s be clear about this; it’s not just about money. It’s about changing people’s mindsets towards consuming bottled water.

Even British MPs and their staff need to change their habits; they drink more than 250,000 bottles of water every year, with many discarded half-full.

Whichever way you look at it, that is pretty sinful. And it’s a lot of water, money and waste down the drain.

So, when a company claimed to be able to produce “pure drinking water from thin air” – minus the hassle in constantly buying bottled water – it generated quite a buzz in Britain.

With the heading “Water making machine from air”, the pamphlet – trumpeting what is touted to be the first major appliance since the microwave – was distributed to thousands of homes across London.

“Our atmospheric water system draws moisture out of the air and condenses it to crystal clear drinking water,” said M. Relic, director of Cleanworld Ltd (www.cleanworld.ltd.uk ).

He claimed that their machines could transform air moisture into clean, healthy drinking water, while at the same time purifying the air within the room itself.

Well, if the machine can deliver on its promise, creating our own water might be a possible answer to the planet’s dwindling water resources. For apart from the substantial savings, the environmental and health impact could be significant, too.

By CHOI TUCK WO

Source:Star Online.