What’s Tappening Hot Stuff?
03 January 2008 – 8:32 am
I’m not a New Year Resolution kind of guy.
I haven’t made one in years. I just think it’s strange to mark one day of the year as a time to make a change. I prefer to make such changes all the time, when the need arises. I’m not judging. Any time someone makes a change for the better is a good one, even if it’s once a year.
I think the problem I have is that I dislike automatic event-based obligatory actions, like the expectation of a Hallmark card on every card-giving holiday or buying people stuff off their (lengthy) Christmas list. There’s nothing wrong with card and gift-giving, I just don’t like when the thought is replaced by convenience.
Nor am I a “tree hugger”. (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
But here’s a change I can get behind and only here on the new year because I just happened to hear about it on New Year’s Eve when my friend Lori was over. Her brother, Eric Yaverbaum, helped kick off a war against bottled water last year with his Tappening initiative.
If you think about it for a sec (really. a sec.) you can easily see how absurd this whole bottled water craze is. It started with the spring water companies, but it didn’t take Coca Cola and Pepsi long to figure out that they could make a killing by putting tap water into bottles and selling them for prices higher than soda. Huh?
Consider all the resources used to process (electricity, partly from petroleum), transport (more petroleum), and bottle (yep, plastic is made from petroleum) the stuff that flows right into your house.
What a waste. And oil reached $100 a barrel yesterday.
I think I’m one of the few people I know who happily drinks tap water, so this isn’t a stretch for me in practice. We live out in the woods west of Boston and we get our water from a well. Therefore, we had the water tested and it’s actually quite pure. My wife isn’t convinced, however, and will drink it if it’s filtered. So we got a refrigerator with a filter on a water tap. It can’t possibly do much to it as there isn’t much in it in the first place, but it makes her feel better.
And she does, however, drink a good amount of bottled water. Tsk, tsk.
So I’m going to break my “no new year’s resolution” policy.
Here it is: Get my wife to stop drinking bottled water. 
And I’ve told you about it. You might take a moment to consider your own bottled water habits.
Pay it forward. Write about it.
Quiz!: The first person who comments here with the (1) correct name of the movie the title of this post came from, and (2) who said it, and who is (3) willing to tell me their mailing address, gets a free Tappening reusable bottle. Well, not entirely free. It’ll be purchased by me.)
UPDATE: More Free Tappening Bottles
We’ve got a winner to the quiz, but the guys at Tappening.com have noticed this post and offered up some bottles for me to give away to my readers. Here’s how you can get one.
All us affiliate marketers drink water all day long at our desks, right? (Except Shawn Collins who drinks diet Dr. Pepper). That’s a lot of bottled water! If you’ve got a blog, write something about this topic. Post a trackback and I’ll send you a cool Tappening bottle. Act fast to get yours!
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37 Responses to “What’s Tappening Hot Stuff?”
Sixteen Candles
Long Duk Dong
By Shawn on Jan 3, 2008
You got it Shawn. Tell me you didn’t need to look that up!
Send me your name/address in an email to me (my firstname @ jangro.com) and which bottle you want from Tappening.com.
By Scott on Jan 3, 2008
Curse you, Collins… I knew that.
By Sam Harrelson on Jan 3, 2008
Wrong Shawn, Sam.
I’ll have more opportunities for you to get a bottle soon. Stay tuned…
By Scott on Jan 3, 2008
Haha… oops. Apologies to Shawn.
By Sam Harrelson on Jan 3, 2008
Don’t feel bad, there’s got to be some reason to curse Shawn.
By Scott on Jan 3, 2008
OK, if you want your own free Tappening water bottle, check out the update at the end of the post.
By Scott on Jan 3, 2008
This is something that’s driven me nuts for years. So wrong it makes my head hurt.
By Bill on Jan 3, 2008
Oh, I wrote the obligitory trackback article too.
You don’t have to send the bottle if you don’t want…its a great topic to write about regardless.
By Bill on Jan 3, 2008
Get a simple under the counter Reverse Osmosis filter system from Home Depot or Lowes for $150ish - water will be just like the bottled water, and available 24/7 right at home. That’s how I got my wife to kick the habit.
By Rich on Jan 3, 2008
Thanks Bill. You get a bottle for sure!
Rich, that’s all part of my master plan. See, I keep a large salt water reef tank, and RO/DI water would be good for that too. It’s a bit more expensive than the Home Depot models for a 5 stage system with all the bells and whistles.
If only my well water wasn’t quite so good, I could more easily justify it.
By Scott on Jan 3, 2008
The “guys at Tappening” love what you wrote! I’m one of them. In the best of interests of not boring your readers, I won’t drone on about how awful bottled water is for our environment. I already do enough of that! But as a 25 year veteran of pr…I must say, it may be the greatest marketing coup of my career-selling us all bottled tap water that is. And if you don’t agree, I’ll be branding bottled air sometime soon! We just want people educated on the facts…forget the bottle! You can buy anyones. We don’t care. What we do care about is you don’t waste your money and hurt our environment in silly ways that are VERY not necessary!
By Eric Yaverbaum on Jan 3, 2008
I would like the tappening water!
By Paul on Jan 3, 2008
Well if you have to have Tappening…then you have to indulge me for a minute with the seven sins of bottled water:
1. Plastic bottles are made from petroleum. 2. The bottles often go into the trash, rather than the recycle bin (in part because many states don’t offer five-cent deposits, as they do on soda and beer cans and bottles). 3. The water is pumped far from where it is sold, creating needless pollution as trucks and barges transport it across the country or around the world. 4. Some local communities have objected to the sale of their water, arguing that the water underground or flowing from natural springs is publicly owned and should not be exploited for profit. 5. Bottled water is rarely as closely monitored as tap water. 6. Tap water in the United States, when provided by a municipal system, is the most highly monitored and safe supply in the world. 7. Some of the water sold in bottles is tap water, but it costs an awful lot more per gallon.
By Eric Yaverbaum on Jan 3, 2008
So you want to get your wife to stop drinking expensive bottle water!?!
Well do some math to figure out how much $$ she is spending on this water. Then compare that figure with the cost of something she wants; ie a diamond necklace, shoes, etc. Be very careful here, you want to stress these are things she COULD have if the $ was not wasted on bottled water. Maybe the seed will be planted that drinking from the tap could lead to extra spending money.
Good luck!
By Operating Agreement on Jan 4, 2008
I have to admit I am a bottled water fan, but not all bottled water. I prefer Fiji, it is just so darn good. If I could bath in it or have a pool full of it to swim in I would. Most all the other brands, especially the ones that ARE tap water, I can take or leave. I mostly drink them out of convenience, they are there and it is good to drink water.
So, I am not quite ready to say I personally will use Tappening, but I will blog and trackback, because it is a great cause and it does have me thinking!
I am a huge fan of recycling, so recycle those bottles and more!
Thanks,
Michael Rowles
SMB Security
CopiaTECH
By SMB Antivirus on Jan 5, 2008
tell her that you would spend the same amount of money for the water to buy her jewellery.. diamonds are a womans best friend
By Aaron on Jan 5, 2008
Well…you invited the comment…so to be specific, here’s another thought to ponder! If you drink the recommended daily allowance of water a day, you will spend $1400 a year. If you get it from your tap, you will spend 49 cents.
By Eric Yaverbaum on Jan 5, 2008
I’ve been a big water bottle drinker for a couple years. Nalgene is my go-to container but I’ll check out Tappening. One thing I love and live on are those single serving favored sugar packages. Drinking water alone can get old, but using the packets (Lipton,4c,Propel) gives me a plethora of possibilities.
By Kyle on Jan 5, 2008
Nalgene is great! Although we’re thrilled our bottles became so “trendy” so quickly…that’s not why we’re in this! We’re in it to educate as many people as possible. So by all means, feel very free to go to our site, learn the facts and buy your bottle at Nalgene or Proctor and Gamble or any one of a dozen companies in the space. We’d be more than happy to simply influence your purchase of bottled water…doesn’t matter who’s re-usable bottle you pick instead! It’s all tap water!
By Eric Yaverbaum on Jan 5, 2008
oh also my girlfriend ist just like this…
By bridget on Jan 6, 2008
Howdy Scott - been off radar for a while - thought I would jump in real quick and thank you and the rest of the BumpZee folks for keeping that community alive.
I also dig what you said here about the bottled water craze… I’m a tap water man myself - but to be honest, have really been sucked in by the convenience of the bottles… I will join your new years res and try to use a single bottle all year!
By Mark from Bloglyne on Jan 7, 2008
I just wrote about this post and the Tappening bottles on my blog. This is a great way to inform people about the cost of bottled water and promote people to switch!
By Blaine on Jan 8, 2008
Thanks for spreading the word, guys! I’ll be hitting you up soon for where to send bottles.
By Scott on Jan 8, 2008
I loved your article bro, i think even i ll educate as many people as possible.
By ilyas on Jan 9, 2008
Sixteen Candles is one of those classic movies!! Great qoute!
I use to love the ease and convenience of the bottled water, but I realized how much I was spending on that and got myself a Nalgene bottle instead.
By email marketing software on Jan 9, 2008
Hey Scott,
how could you ever think bloggers run on water? The run on a mix of gasoline and nicotine. At least, the few bloggers I know in the ‘real’ world
-Dave
By Dave Origano on Jan 9, 2008
I totally agree with you. People are paying a lot of money on bottled water (and are using many resources to process, bottle and transport it). But I believe people like to pay a lot of money on useless things. It makes them feel more comfortable I guess (I have no idea why) although many of them know they have nothing special(the things).
By dopeboy on Jan 11, 2008
Hey Scott, nice new years resolution! I’m all there with you on this one.
>I think I’m one of the few people I know who happily drinks tap water
Nope, I’m doing it too, even though I’m living in big city Copenhagen and the tap water almost taste as bad as most tap in the US, I’m still drinking it. I spend money on a lot of crazy stuff, but paying for water certainly isen’t one of them.
By Raz on Jan 12, 2008
my wife goes through about 4 cases of bottle water a month.
Sheesh. i think i’ll be forwarding this article to her
By raymondm on Jan 14, 2008
I’ve got some bottles, thanks to Eric from Tappening.com.
Emails are out to those of you who qualify. (Bill, I’ll get Kyle to hand deliver yours.)
I’ve got just a few unclaimed. It’s not too late to talk up a good cause.
By Scott on Jan 24, 2008
Pre-Xmas and New Years make me nervous. Xmas for the acute commercialism; and New Year’s because for some reason, I just hate saying goodbye to the previous year, I actually go into a slight period of mourning (yep, my shrink’s looking into that!).
I watched a program a couple years back about the ludicrousness of bottled water. This guy put a group of people to a blind test of bottled water and tap water. Most of them preferred the tap water.
I haven’t had bottled water in a while.
And I don’t miss it.
take care…
By Steve on Feb 24, 2008
Hey guys I love TAPPENING AND I LOVE MAGIC. Check out this video I made for tappening to help inform the world about the EVILS OF BOTTLED WATER! Would love FEEDBACK!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JWO_5lKVBAA
By Livan on Mar 17, 2008