Tap App Helps You Find Free Water Nearby & Avoid Buying A Plastic Bottle
But water?
Launched on Oct. 23, Tap app helps you find free water near you, according to Forbes.
Created by entrepreneur Samuel Ian Rosen, Tap allows smartphone users across the world to find the closest free public drinking fountains or water bottle refill stations, says Forbes, including businesses and restaurants that have signed up as a part of the global Tap Authorized Refill Network.
“Nobody up till now has built a Google Map for (drinking) water,” Rosen told Forbes.
When I go to Google Map and type ‘water fountain,’ there is nothing.
"I thought it was ridiculous that in 2018 I’m buying a plastic water bottle that’s going to last 450 years on earth because I couldn’t trust the drinking water at the fountain."
Jack Taylor/Getty Images News/Getty Images Tap shows you in real-time where you can find water, says mindbodygreen, and you can filter (no pun intended) by what kind of water you’re looking for, such as flavored, sparkling, and, well, filtered water.
The app also shows you “water ATMs,” where you can buy unpackaged water to refill an existing water bottle, Forbes reports.
It’s great for them —they get more people who are eco-conscious coming into their store,” Rosen told the Philly Voice.
Jack Taylor/Getty Images News/Getty Images Rosen isn’t the first to attempt to launch an app aimed at helping people find public sources of free drinking water.
Schools Switch To Bottled Water After Tests Show Elevated Bacteria Levels
WHITE LAKE (WWJ) – Another local school district is dealing with water issues.
Officials say three buildings in the Huron Valley Schools district — Lakeland High School, White Lake Middle School and Lakewood Elementary — receive water from a well that has tested positive for elevated levels of coliform bacteria.
Communications Director Kim Root said they immediately implemented a water station policy after seeing the test results.
"But out of an abundance of caution, we put bottled water in place at all three of those buildings and we taped off the drinking fountains."
Huron Valley Schools have about 15 buildings with about 9,000 students total.
Roughly 2,000 of those students attend schools affected.
"We do have bottled water stations at all of the buildings," Root said.
"Kids frequently come to school anyway with water bottles and so we have filling stations where they can fill their own water bottles, or there’s cups there as well."
Root said officials are planning to re-chlorinate the well water and then ask for a bond next year to hook up to the White Lake municipal water system.
"That’s quite a costly venture so we’d be looking at that potentially as part of a bond or a building site sinking fund millage that we’d go out to the public for," she said.
Students drink bottled water at Lannon Elementary after tests show E.coli, coliform
Officials are trying to determine just how widespread the problem is.
At the end of September, a routine test of the water was not good.
A second round of testing confirmed it.
"We shut off the water.
You can see over our drinking fountains, we’ve plastic bagged them and put some signs on there because old habits die hard and we want to make sure nobody makes a mistake and takes a drink," said the principal of Lannon Elementary School, Brian Balfany.
Lannon school has plans to hook up to municipal water, but that will require around $350,000 to lay the laterals.
The district will try to get an emergency grant.
In the meantime, vats of water are being brought in for hand-washing stations, and many bottles donated by the community keep coming.
"Student safety is our number one goal, and our staff as well.
We provided that bottled water right off the bat," said Balfany.
Bottled water to overtake all other soft drinks globally
Health and wellness is a key factor driving the bottled water category, with consumers increasingly turning to the beverage for calorie free, pure hydration; while in some markets it offers consumers assured safety and quality.
The category has been growing worldwide in recent years but now Zenith sees it poised to overtake all other soft drink categories this year.
“This is all the more remarkable because other soft drinks include carbonates, juices, energy, sports, concentrates, ready to drink teas and coffees, some of which are also growing strongly,” said Richard Hall, chairman, Zenith Global, speaking at the 15th Global Bottled Water Congress in Evian, France, this week.
“Bottled water consumption reached 418bn litres in 2017, up 92% since 2007, an average approaching 7% a year and a 10 year increase of 200bn litres.
All other soft drinks totalled 438bn litres in 2017, up 24% since 2007, an average of 2% a year and a 10 year increase of 84bn litres.
“We are therefore forecasting 2018 will be the year when bottled water exceeds the total for all other non-alcoholic beverages.” The data comes from Zenith Global’s new online globaldrinks.com database, launched this week, which covers 24 non-alcoholic beverage categories and segments across 86 countries in both volume and value, with figures going back to 2006 and forecasts up to 2022.
Information from the database compares bottled water prices for five market segments over the past 10 years.
“This shows that the vast majority of bottled water is not only healthy, convenient and local, it is also very affordably priced with virtually no increase in average prices during the past ten years,” said Hall.
“The price of bulk water in packs over 10 litres has consistently averaged out at $0.15 or less per litre and the average for smaller packs of still water has not risen above $0.65 per litre.
Nevertheless, there is a strong premium for other waters, with sparkling water averaging up to US$0.97 per litre, flavoured water up to US$1.49 per litre and functional water up to US$1.95 per litre.”
EVERY SIP YOU TAKE: How safe is your bottled water?
“Increased use of borehole water and bottled water from underground sources for which adequate chemical composition has not been adhered to is showing increased risk of poor bone health with increased fracture risk and poor teeth.” Health risks Out of the ten samples submitted for chemical analysis to the Government Chemist, four turned out to be unfit for human consumption.
A sample of Grange Park bottled water from Buruburu was also found to have fluoride levels exceeding the WHO maximum guideline value of 1.5ppm for drinking water.
Kenya Bottled water from Buruburu was found to have exceeding fluoride levels over the WHO maximum guideline value of 1.5ppm for drinking water.
“Children are however more susceptible to fluorides and mild dental fluorosis can occur at drinking-water concentrations between 0.9 and 1.2 mg/litre.” Besides having excess fluoride and iron, a sample of Avodale bottled water from Eastleigh was found to be acidic and the pH of the water was out of the WHO guideline range of 6.5 to 8.5 for drinking water.
“Avodale bottled water (sampled from Eastleigh) had a pH value out of the WHO guideline of 6.5 – 8.5 for drinking water.
Moreover, international standards are different each year.
All standards are developed using WHO guide.” KEBS listed due to an increase in the number of illegal water bottling firms and traders.
Some 158 firms whose water did not comply with the Kenya/EAC standards were in May this year found to be operating illegally by KEBS and got suspended.
In 2016, KEBS listed water as a high risk product in the country due to an increase in the number of illegal water bottling firms and traders.
Some 158 firms whose water did not comply with the Kenya/EAC standards were in May this year found to be operating illegally by KEBS and got suspended.
Lannon students are drinking bottled water after school water turns up contaminated
In the meantime, all the school’s water fountains and sinks have been closed down, and students are drinking bottled water and using portable hand-washing stations.
Toilets remain in use.
The school, 7145 N. Lannon Road, depends on a private well instead of municipal water.
Denise Dorn Lindberg, public information officer with the school district, said the contamination was found during September’s routine water testing.
No one became ill as a result of the contaminated water, Dorn Lindberg said.
“It’s significant for us and will certainly have an impact on the district,” Lindberg said about the expense.
“But in terms of the safety and well-being of our students, it’s something we need to take care of.” Some residential properties near the school are experiencing water contamination as well.
If they also hook up to municipal water, Lindberg said the school district could be partially reimbursed for its up-front cost.
The state Department of Natural Resources suggested that the school district apply for an emergency water grant.
Lindberg said she’s not yet sure whether the situation is urgent enough to qualify.
A new app can help you stop buying bottled water
A new startup called Tap has a bold ambition: convince people to stop buying plastic bottles of water.
Tap launched an app Tuesday that displays nearby clean drinking water locations, from restaurants and retail stores to public water fountains so you can refill your water bottle.
"I believe we, as consumers, have been robbed of our own water and sold back to us by corporations."
Rosen is the cofounder and former CEO of on-demand storage startup MakeSpace.
By making it easy and inexpensive to find water nearby, Tap hopes people will cut down on plastic waste and change their behavior.
Consumers may also start seeing blue "Tap" signs in store windows signaling the business is friendly to thirsty guests.
Earlier this month, the UN Intergovernmental Panel released a bombshell climate change report that warned global warming is on track to have a disastrous impact if nothing changes by 2030.
But Tap isn’t the first to connect people to clean drinking water.
Nonprofit WeTap, an app that has been around for about six years, helps people find to the closest public drinking fountains.
But Rosen is steadfast: "The future is bottle-less."
Pleasantville Schools Get Bottled Water During Boil Advisory
A boil order remains in effect in Pleasantville from a broken water main over the weekend; that’s led to restrictions on water usage in the city’s schools, and one local merchant is helping out.
The Knoxville Hy-Vee is partnering with Pepsi to deliver bottled water to Pleasantville’s schools today; this will give students and staff access to drinkable water during the day, while the order remains in effect.
Gary Friday is the principal at Pleasantville High School; he tells KNIA/KRLS News the students and staff are grateful to Hy-Vee for providing this assistance.
“Absolutely; absolutely.
Love that Hy-Vee is doing that; really appreciate that very much.
(The) kids will really enjoy that,” Friday says.
“We’ve covered all the water fountains in the buildings; of course, restrooms and everything are still workable and going.” Friday says the kitchen staff has been taking extra precautions as well with food preparation.
These restrictions will stay in place until the boil order is lifted and the schools are given the all-clear to go back to normal water usage.
Price gouging complaints abound during Austin boil water order
Monday’s announcement caused thousands of people to search for bottled water.
Viewers sent in pictures of gas stations with cases of bottled water priced up to $30.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office explained to KXAN’s investigative team in 2017 that stores were calculating the price of a case of water based on what a single bottle of water was selling for in the store.
That means a $1.50 bottle of water would drive the price of a 24-pack case to $36.
That reasoning makes it tough for state investigators to prosecute a business for price gouging, the office told KXAN during our 2017 price gouging investigation.
Of the more than 5,000 price gouging complaints filed with the attorney general in 2017, none of the prosecutions were for cases of bottled water, indicating the attorney general’s office did not find price hikes on cases of bottled water constituted a case of price gouging.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office would not issue an opinion as to whether the bottled water complaints we’re seeing now constitute prosecutable price gouging cases when we contacted the office this week.
The AG’s Office instead asked that people with complaints contact the office’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 1 (800) 621-0508 or to file a complaint online at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/cpd/file-a-consumer-complaint so those complaints could be investigated.
On Oct. 19, Abbot added another 36 counties to the disaster declaration: Bandera, Baylor, Blanco, Brown, Callahan, Cameron, Coleman, Comanche, Eastland, Edwards, Erath, Gillespie, Hamilton, Haskell, Hidalgo, Jones, Kendall, Kinney, Lampasas, Liberty, Madison, Mills, Nolan, Palo Pinto, Parker, San Jacinto, San Saba, Shackelford, Somervell, Stephens, Taylor, Throckmorton, Uvalde, Walker, Willacy, and Zavala.
Anyone with a complaint of suspected price gouging in any of these 53 counties on or after the dates listed above can file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
New Mexico concerned about water contamination at Cannon Air Force Base
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Chemicals associated with firefighting foam once used at a U.S. Air Force base in eastern New Mexico have been detected in groundwater on and near the military installation, prompting requests by state officials for more tests and a study to determine the extent of the toxic plume.
The New Mexico Environment Department confirmed the contamination Tuesday, saying officials at Cannon Air Force Base notified state environment, health and agricultural officials about the compounds.
The Air Force is making bottled water available for drinking and cooking for residents who rely on wells that exceed a health advisory level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"This is all in groundwater, so we’re concerned about protection and remediation of groundwater in that area.
The chemical compounds have been detected at military bases and other sites around the U.S. EPA testing from 2013 to 2015 found significant amounts of PFAS in public water supplies in 33 states, a finding that helped move PFAS up as a national priority.
Rick Snyder created a state response team and approved $23 million in emergency spending.
Some members of Congress also are pressing for the EPA to act faster to bring more of the country’s most hazardous industrial compounds under regulation.
New Mexico environment officials say this marks the first major detection of the chemicals in the state and more work needs to be done to determine the scope of the contamination at Cannon and areas bordering the base.
The state Environment Department is overseeing the Air Force’s investigation of the contamination at Cannon.
Aside from studying the plume, the agency is requiring the Air Force to sample all water wells within a 4-mile (6-kilometer) radius of the southeastern corner of the base.