Oh water, water. In a country where we are so fortunate to have you flowing freely from our taps, isn’t it funny that we opt to pay more than we would for say… a cupcake to drink you out of a bottle? (Or if you prefer the square, flower-laden variety, opt to pay close to the equivalent of a modest sandwich) A plastic bottle, no less, which may be leaching potential carcinogens into you (and, well, therefore into you, yes you out there). A bottle made of non-renewable resources that once empty, will go on to litter our land and waterways, or be lovingly placed into my bicycle basket (there must be something about my “vintage” [read: broken] brown bike that says “this girl’s a willing hippie who will redeem your laziness and ensure that your recyclables make their way to the nearest receptacle”). Or in the best-case scenario, be shoved into the frequently overflowing Toronto recycle bins (perhaps this explains the apparent need to resort to the bicycle basket) and maybe go on to be recycled through a pollution creating, energy consumptive process. Silly, right?
Right. But, allow me to digress momentarily from the bottle banter while I acknowledge some contaminants that we Torontonians do face chances of encountering in our tap water. The ever-controversial fluoride is being thoroughly tackled by our friends over at Regenesis www.voteoutfluoride.com while the not-even-controversial-just-bad lead continues to infiltrate, especially in Toronto’s older neighbourhoods and buildings - the ones we at About Face are looking to inhabit (Visit Toronto's page on Lead in drinking water. We recommend following steps 4 & 5 whether or not you are pregnant or breastfeeding). It wasn’t sooo long ago that lead could be found in, well, pretty much everything; toys, household items, pipes… hmmm, kinda like plastic. You wouldn’t pay sandwich-equivalent prices to drink out of a lead cup, right? Just sayin.
But, we’ve all done it. Culprits of our love-affair with convenience. At least we’ve seen one good thing come of water bottles lately. Okay, I’m a little late reporting on this, but I’ve been busy (all that pouring of filtered water into reusable bottles takes time, you know). Chances are you either saw this first-hand last weekend at Nuit Blanche or in one of the many articles on Alexandra (Alita) González before and since anyhow. Her Trinity Bells installation made me happy with nostalgia for my 80s child affinity toward the glowing nubs (of plastic) that made for endless hours of entertainment with lite-brite creations.
And of course I offer a big high-five to Alexandra for the attempt to address the pollution and BPA issues with plastic bottles. How, though, does letting big kids move oversized rainbow coloured bottle-pegs around to create giant collaborative lite (sticking with the alternative spelling) images evoke health and environmental concerns? If you didn’t get it by playing, hopefully the visual and interactive success of González’s work inspired you to research further. And, well, I suppose you’re reading about it here.
More belated Nuit Blanche commentary tomorrow. Pour maintenant, bon nuit.
-Lauren
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