Tap the tap

Re “They’re drinking it up in N.Y.,” Column One, Feb. 25

The Times tells of New York entrepreneur Craig Zucker’s success in marketing “Tap’d NY,” New York City tap water sold in single-use plastic bottles for $1.50.

Americans spend at

least $4 billion a year on bottled water, even as our taxes pay for the filtration and purification systems that deliver safe drinking water

to our taps. The joke is on all of us, because we all suffer

the consequences of excess throwaway plastic gener-

ated by the bottled-water habit.

Plastics account for much of our landfill waste, litter and ocean debris. Plastics are petrochemical products that are harmful to our environment and may take hundreds of years to break down, if they ever do. The best alternative for the environment, for our wallets and for our health is to drink tap water from reusable containers.

Lisa Boyle

Pacific Palisades

The writer is board chairman of Heal the Bay.