OMG Starbucks and the cold tap

[emz]

The American coffee shop chain Starbucks has been accused of wasting more than 23 million litres of water each day because staff are told to leave taps running non-stop.

Starbucks 'wastes 23 million litres of water each day' - Telegraph

Incredible

[bruce]

Call me daft if you want, but surely all this water simply goes back into the system and will be 'recycled' to other users? Sure there will be some energy wasted in processing the water but none of the actual water will be wasted will it?

[include]

Must waste a bloody lot of money as well. No wonder the drinks in there are so expensive!

[kepler]

Well, in a typical business day, Starbucks have pretty much canceled out any efforts I've made to save water throughout my entire life.

[cdw]

Makes me feel a bit better for never having shopped there. I wonder if this is a common problem in restaurants etc.? After all, they suggested that they had to do it for health & safety reasons.

[reality]

The article is a bit misleading in only picking on Starbucks. As pointed out in the article, the complaint is really about a "dipper well" sanitation for utensils between uses. About 2 minutes of Google search showed what these were, how they're used in all kinds of environments, of which Starbucks is just one example, one with a high impact press value. And, that it's designed to specifically meet an FDA regulation: 3-304.12 In-Use Utensils, Between-Use Storage. (D) In running water of sufficient velocity to flush particulates to the drain, if used with moist food such as ice cream or mashed potatoes;

FDA/CFSAN FDA 2001 Food Code - Chapter 3

[Cricket Tragic]

Well said, reality.

Does that mean we can all now go back to Starbucks?

[gerrit]

Originally Posted by bruce

Call me daft if you want, but surely all this water simply goes back into the system and will be 'recycled' to other users? Sure there will be some energy wasted in processing the water but none of the actual water will be wasted will it?

I can tell you about billions of gallons of water that won't be going back in the system.

How about all the small containers of Great Lakes water that the Great Lakes Compact is going to be allowing Coca-Cola (Dasani), Pepsico (Aquafina) and Nestle (Perrier) to divert outside of the Great Lakes basin because their container sizes are under the minimum 5.7 diversion cap.

Congress passed the Compact in September. Now it just needs the signature of the U.S president and according to Detroit News, he's already indicated that he'll sign it.