After posting my last piece that asked whether drinking bottled water is a sin, news suddenly erupted.  The anti-bottled water insurgency has hit the streets of Baltimore.

As it happens, a nonprofit organization called the Campaign For Corporate Accountability is holding an event called "Think Outside the Bottle."  From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov. 7) volunteers will be outside the Barnes & Noble bookstore at 33rd and St. Paul Streets in the Charles Village neighborhood of Baltimore.

There and in seven other cities around the country, the activists will be urging consumers to pressure Coke to admit on Dasani bottled water lables that the fancy-sounding product is really just tap water.

Jenna Garland, Baltimore organizer for the Boston-based Corporate Accountability group, said she thinks bottled water is essentially a rip off. She says it creates litter and wastes 17 million barrels of oil a year used to make plastic bottles.

I asked: isn't drinking bottled water at least better for your health than drinking carbonated sugar water, which is what people normally buy at convenience stores?  She replied that may be true...but better yet would be to save your money. Instead of wasting money on water you could just get out of your tap, she urges people to carry a reusable water bottle and fill it up at home.

"They are trying to sell people something for $1.19 that they can really get for free," said Garland. "So they have to fancy it up a little bit. That's why they've avoided saying it's really tap water. But we want people to have that information, so that people know what they are buying is...tap water."

She's urging people to call Coke's customer service line at 1-800-438-2653 and ask the company to put the words "public water source" on the Dasani labels.

Ray Crockett, spokesman for Coke, said such a change would be unnecessary, because he said consumers aren't confused about where Dasani comes from.  The labels don't say "tap water," but he points out that a Dasani Web site that says Coke "starts with a local water supply which is then filtered." 

"The labels clearly state that it's purified water," said Crockett.  "We add some minerals for taste."  When asked which minerals, he said: "Salt and minerals."

He said that bottled water sales continue to grow across the country, because people like the taste and convenience of the product.  Dasani is the No. 2 bottled water in the U.S., after Aquafina, which is distributed by Pepsi.

"Consumption of bottled water is a personal choice," said Crockett. "People can choose bottled water, or they can bring their own tap water.  We offer water in convenient, portable and resealable packaging that's readily available to them."