Bottled Water is bullshit!
*Update Sept 22nd 07* Just bumping this one back up, I found a pretty interesting blog on Reddit.com which points to this article that informs.
(CORVALLIS, Ore. ) - Around the world, factories are using more than 18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water a year to create something that, by and large, most people don't need. But the product is so amazingly popular that sales are going up 10 percent a year, just like clockwork.
The big success story? Bottled water. And the resources mentioned above are just to make the plastic containers.
Another 41 billion gallons of water is then used to fill them – water that is often just tap water, and other times has less frequent monitoring for safety or purity than if it had come out of a tap.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 5)
31. Come down to New Orleans and drink the tap water. Then try the various 'spring waters' available at the store, distilled water and Dasani.. If you can't notice the difference, your taste buds (and possibly your other senses) must be dulled down. There is something not right with the tap water here! I wouldn't give it to my cat.
Incidentally, since Katrina, the city has not been putting flouride in the N.O. water supply. The system can't handle it.
But I agree that the deregulation of industies in recent years (i.e. during the Bush administration) has apparently created loopholes that allow manufacturers to mislead the public about what is in 'spring water' - as well as toothpaste, dog food, canned meat products..
We are being lied to, ripped off (especially by pharmaceutical companies) and bamboozled into thinking that our government agencies are looking out for our health.
One more point: almost all members of congress won't touch tap water, prefering one of the bottled alternatives. I wonder why?
George at 6:57PM on Jul 29th 2007
32. I have read that for all the billions of dollars that we spend on bottled water we could ensure that the people in third world countries dying for lack of clean water could have it. Not to mention the contribution to global warming all the trucking around of the bottles is causing. To the contributor who uses bottled water in his car, I use a travel mug; it also has the advantage of being thermal so it stays colder longer. And it doesn't add to landfills, either, because most bottles are not recycled.
Jeannie at 10:38PM on Jul 29th 2007
33. well, no its not bs. not all the water coming out of the faucet is equal to the water coming out of other faucets around the country. not even the bottled variety all taste alike. and if you don't like the taste of your tap water, you won't drink it - or if they don't change the filter of the water fountain...
and if you can't taste the difference, great, but why bash someone who can?
nicolette stepro at 10:52PM on Jul 29th 2007
34. The water that comes out of my tap has a very strong chlorine odor. Yes I have thought of buying the Brita water filter. I have tried various bottled water and I can taste a distinct difference in purified, distilled and natural spring waters. We found that we really enjoy Deer Park spring water. It's the only water that satisfys me since I was a little girl on my grandfathers farm where we had a well.
April Pembelton at 8:37AM on Jul 30th 2007
35. doesn't sounds great that the water company's only have one person checking all of these company's.
But with hundreds of workers for the government checking the water what is there starting (or highest) standard and what about the carrier of the water? the pipes?
wendy at 12:30PM on Jul 30th 2007
36. I drink bottled water and don't drink aquafina or deja blu because they taste like tap water... so I try to only get dasani or filtered water. Believe you me there is a difference. I am like that first true comment. I get sick for several days. I take vitamins to balance what i don't get in water. and the convenience of the bottle when i travel which is every day. And i have a filter system on my house because I break out in simple tap water. I don't know where that came from. because I was raised in the country and we had well water and I could jump in the creek out back of our house and not break out. but we moved to the city and my skin is sensitive to everything. Water, sunlight,.. I even have pollen allergies which is funny cuz the country has so much pollen I should have died.
Co-z at 12:44PM on Jul 30th 2007
37. just like all milk is the same... just more water. Its also filtered water by the way. if you buy 2% 1% or skim milk you buy filtered water.
Co-z at 1:05PM on Jul 30th 2007
38. I try not to buy bottled water because it is a rip-off, but most of the charge is from the convenience and the plastic bottle (or the energy it takes to make the bottle). But I do stock up on them when a hurricane is heading our way, I live in Florida. The tap water down here is pretty good. I use a PUR filter system which I bought for $20 and it tasted better (in my opinion than bottled water). I save so much money that way. I have 3 containers I fill with water (from the PUR) and keep in the fridge and take one when I go to the gym. It saves me money and having to recycle or add to trash.
People have different reasons to do or buy different things and I but bottled water soley for emergencies.
David McCool at 1:45PM on Jul 30th 2007
39. Oh yes, If I hadn't already had the filter system in place when our small state was flooded earlier this month, I would have been hospitalized along with the other neighbors i had that continued to drink the water and they didn't give us a warning not to drink the water. It came in the mail with the bill and showed the levels of pollutants and the warning not to drink the water. They had a potable water station sign but there was never anyone standing at the station and there was a lock on it so we couldn't even get the potable water and I of course laughted at all the people that had laughted at me for drinking bottled water. They had to ask if they could come over and fill up some jugs for drinking. I could have charged them but I didn't.
Co-z at 1:55PM on Jul 30th 2007
40. For those who say bottled water is "convenient"-- Why not buy a thermus of some kind? People that are buying bottled water are simply buying the plastic that retains the water! Bottled water is a way of refraining people from drinking soda or other "unhealthy beverages." If companies were really out for people's best interest, they would bottle fresh sqeezed orange juice or milk to lug around instead of water that has been passed through a simple filter. I think there should be more in depth tests made for those who bottle water rather than simply dunking a stupid little pH paper in the water realizing it's only neutral then deciding to give it the O.K.. Bottled water is all about appeal, it's about the "OoOo..look at that neat bottle!"...
All rubbish.
Denise at 5:10PM on Sep 22nd 2007
41. I have two Brita filter systems. One on my counter, and one in the frige. I fill the refrigerated one from the room temp one & use it for drinking. I can taste the difference between the Brita water & what we get from the tap! When on a job-site, I carry a canteen which I've filled about 1/3rd full & frozen (at an angle) before-hand. That way I have good COLD water all day! The Dallas area has good tap water - but the taste of tap water does vary. It was years before the water here tasted "right" after my family moved here from Mi. Now, when I vist - Mi's water tastes "funny".
Robert E. Quillen at 7:48PM on Sep 22nd 2007
42. It's the convenience, stupid. Period. Though when you hear of the waste amd pollution that goes into packaging and dispersing, well, the libs have a point, and they have so few points.
Bilko at 8:47PM on Sep 22nd 2007
43. Does anyone have any idea if these blogger boobs like Hoard and Ada actually get paid by AOL? If so, how much? If not, take a guess!
Bilko at 8:57PM on Sep 22nd 2007
44. And Evian is just "naive" backwards.
Josh L. at 9:22PM on Sep 22nd 2007
45. Bottled Water: "Good Tasting Water", now that is something that the educated pick up on as a siren call of the bamboozled! Water has no color, taste or smell, so good taste is really the absence of any perceived taste. My tap water is priced at about two gallons for one penny in K.C. and that is the ratio of 256 oz./$.01. Bear with me; Based on a 16oz. bottle for $.85, 256/16= 16bottles @$.85 = $13.60. All for a penny's worth of water and the mark-up is not 150%, that would be 1.5x only! Now multiply the decimal ratio by 100 and you have 13,600%. If ever there was a product that demanded a recycling premium on the bottle, water is it! I would suggest starting at $.75 per quart bottle. The value is entirely assignable to the cost of the bottle, not the contents. As a student of economics, I will concede that the cache of a Perrier or a "Naive" could account for some pro-rata share of the retail price, and so I only call for a $.75 rebate on the bottle. Groundwater which has passed through soil into an aquifer can be considered filtered, even if it is subsequently contaminated by industrial effluent. The misery of sulphurous "egg-water", such as in Slidell, Louisiana is due to dissolved gasses from decomposing vegetation at or near the source of the city water. The city of New Orleans had to overcome this, but to the local residents, to live with some residual smell is to have overcome it. Water which has been processed by reverse-osmosis filtration is not cheap, except to rich folks like us. Even with backflushing the R/O membranes, there is still a replacement cost/kilo-gallons processed of about $.06 per gallon. Poor countries cannot afford that price! They also lack the technology to fabricate the filters and distribute them in a timely fashion. Lastly, I am proud of all of you who contributed to these blogs by carrying vestiges of recycled dinosaur urine to the ballgame. Now don't forget to recycle those plastic bottles!
Walt Bridge at 4:22AM on Sep 23rd 2007