Hi Amber, thanks for your comment. One of the biggest recommendations I make (and adhere too) is using a filter for tap water as an alternative to buying bottled water. Brita is now widely available in Chile and we use one in our house precisely for this reason. In the cited restaurants, they use filtered water too.

I will order tap water at restaurants in Chile and people do stare at me. Many times, they even forget to bring it out with the rest of the beverages, as if to say “Your request was so banal that I couldn’t be bothered to even remember it.” Sometimes my fiancé will order for me just to avoid them glaring at me and muttering under their breath as they sketch out “agua de la llave” on their tablets.

I think it’s especially important in a country like Chile to take initiatives to reduce their waste because the recycling industry is in its infant stage at best.

Very interesting what you have said about the waste bottled water creates.

As you say it is a business. What has always tripped us out in Santiago is that the “aqua con gas” at restaurants is almost as much as a glass of wine. We are lucky in Hawaii to have some of the purest water in the world straight from “the tap”

In America, there is an ad on TV for water filters that say the amount of plastic bottles we use could circle the globe 190 times! That’s too much pollution if you ask me.

We drink tap water at home and filtered water at work. It’s very rare to find a bottle of water that I’ve been using. I tend to reuse the bottle a few times before tossing it in my recycle bin. I wish more people would do the same.

Spread the word Liz!