You probably already know that bottled water is kind of the worst thing ever, but did you know it's getting people in supply convoys blown up? Like other heavy, bulky things our troops have to truck in (primarily fuel), bottled water makes Marines vulnerable to attack by improvised explosives. They don’t even have the luxury of waiting for the BPA to kill them.
Afghanistan has water, but a lot of it is contaminated by raw sewage. One solution is the the Lightweight Water Purification System, which "fits in a Humvee and can produce up to 125 gallons of potable water per hour." The other is the Tactical Water Purification System, which rides on a 7 ton truck, filters up to 1,500 gallons of water an hour and can be set up in 30 minutes.
The Department of Defense has estimated that it spends $500,000 a day to ship bottled water to the 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, and that eliminating this waste could take up to 50 convoy trucks off the road. So less bottled water means savings for the country, reduced trash, fewer vehicles on the road in Afghanistan, and fewer exploded Marines? Tap water’s looking better and better.
