From Christopher Davey.
AS reported in your paper (JEP, 10 Jul) we should all be giving full-hearted backing to the ECO-Active Ban-the-Bottled-Water campaign, as supported by the Environment Department.

Three years ago I found myself at a reunion dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London. As a non-wine diner I requested water, and was offered UK Spring Water at £5 per litre or water specially imported from Fiji at £9 per litre.

Once I had picked myself up off the floor, I demanded, with bad grace, to be served with good ‘multi-recycled’ London tap water at no charge.

Following subsequent research, I discovered that an American factory in Fiji was bottling ground water, with the dire environmental consequence that the water-table had fallen so low that the local inhabitants were being deprived of their natural resource. Unbelievably, this water was then being shipped across the globe at massive environmental cost.

Another serious aspect that your article does not cover is the effect of heat reacting with the chemicals in water bottle plastic.

Research has shown that dioxins are released, which is a toxin that is increasingly found in breast cancer tissue. Maybe this is could be a useful cause for our Chief Medical Officer to take up as well.

In the meantime people should be strongly warned against drinking plastic bottled water that has been left lying in the car, particularly if it has been irradiated by the sun.