Mario Batali Gives Bottled Water the Boot
In March, Alice Waters' famed Chez Panisse restaurant announced it would no longer sell bottled water due to environmental concerns over waste, not only from packaging but from transporting it, too. Now other restaurants are following suit, including premier Chef Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich's Del Posto, which plans to stop selling the bottled stuff by the end of this summer. Batali has 12 restaurants total in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.
1.5 million barrels of oil in the US alone are used to make water bottles from polyethylene terephthalate, 86% of which are landfilled or incinerated. Often it is shipped long distances, like the 1.4 million bottles of Finnish tap water sent 2,700 miles to Saudi Arabia.
According to Bastianich, the restaurant will neutralize and purify NYC's finest through reverse osmosis, then add minerals and salts back into it to create a signature flavor profile. It won't come free, and while the price has yet to be determined, there will likely be a flat, per-person water charge. Says Bastianich: "To spend fossil fuel trucking water around the world is absurd....Water should be as local as anything gets." www.mariobatali.com