I buy the cheapest bottled water for the convenience of my family (to grab a bottle in the garage on their way out). However, for all my sports drink mixtures (powders) I use tap water. I have known for a long time that the tap water in my community has been tested to taste as good, and it is as clean, as any other bottled water sold in the store. In foreign countries with poor/polluted water supplies, bottled water is a necessity and a must, but I think in most (not all) of the US it is a luxury.
Not that any of us are going to stop buying bottled water, but you should at least think about using it less. The plastic containers are a huge garbage problem, and maybe you can save some money on the way.
Article
Rather than spend their dollars on costly plastic containers of water, consumers should boot the bottle and turn on their taps, according to such officials as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Salt Lake City Mayor Ross “Rocky” Anderson and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have issued executive orders prohibiting the use of city money to buy bottled water, and the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan last month approved a measure calling for city events to be bottled-water-free.
“For a long time, I’ve viewed as a huge marketing scam,” Anderson said recently, explaining why he has called for city employees to drink tap water and use refillable water bottles. Municipal water supplies are just as good as bottled water and are monitored far more closely, city officials around the country say. And a gallon of tap water typically costs less than a penny, up to 10,000 times less than an equivalent gallon of bottled water, according to the mayors’ resolution.
The bottled-water business calls the attacks unfair. The head of the industry’s leading trade group says bottled water’s competition is not the kitchen faucet but the soft drinks, sports drinks, iced teas and other beverages that fill grocery store shelves. “I think it’s unfortunate there is now this tap water-versus-bottled water controversy,” said Joseph Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, which represents 450 bottlers, distributors and suppliers. “We don’t see it that way. I don’t think consumers are replacing tap water with bottled water. We make a food product. We see other food products as our competitors.”
I try to drink tap and/or filtered water whenever possible. Although PET, used in most water bottles, is amongst the easiest (and most profitable) plastics to recycle, these bottles are too often thrown into landfills. Most municipalities have tap water that is just as healthy as, if not better than, most bottled water.
Almost all tap water in the USA is extremely clean, many brands of bottled water ARE tap water. So, yes, it is a scam, a horrible, wasteful, retarded scam
It does seem like a marketing ploy has enabled these companies to sell an extremely inexpensive product at a huge markup. Even the least expensive bollted water costs more than gas, yet most people gladly fork over money for a needless product. And why even the need for the plastic bottles. When I was a kid all soda was sold in glass bottles that had a refundable deposit when returned. Why can’t the same thing be done with all the drinks now sold in plastic bottles?
We use filtered tap water exclusively at our house except for convenience water bottles out in the garage fridge when heading out. We used to buy bottled water by the gallon but switched to a simple Brita filter quite awhile back and have been very happy with it.
Not to mention that bottled water is believed to be partly to blame for the rise in tooth decay for the first time in many years, since it does not contain fuoride. Mark that as another tally in the win column for tap water.
Interesting topic, I read a article a few years back about a company trying to start a large gold mine out west. Their application said they intended to use several billions of gallons of water from the local aquifer in the processing of the gold they hoped to yield from the ore. Funny thing is if they just bottled the water they were going to use and sold it as bottled water they would have made about three times the revenue than the gold they were planning to get from the mine.
Sometimes we step over dollars to pick up pennies.
Duh! I find it laffable that people in developed countries think that bottled water is somehow better than tap water.
Spend some time in 3rd/4th world countries, where some water doesn’t even remotely resemble somthing drinkable and then talk to me about bottled water. Even there, the mass of plastic is becoming a *huge *problem. The sludge I’ve seen emanating from some taps can be downright frightening.
Not sure but I believe Aquafina is tap water in a plastic bottle and Coke’s mainstay, Dasani re-treats their water so it “tastes” better.
The Today show had a segment of blind tasting of city tap water. Salt Lake City came out the winner. Only 12 cities submitted, but interesting nonetheless.
Folks parading around with their $1.25 pint sized bottled of water (x8 for a gallon) and then complain bitterly about paying $3 a gallon for gas??? The illogicality of it all Gives me a headache.
I think Aquafina is from Coke, Dasani from Pepsi, and both are filtered tap water, though I’m not certain. Aquafina tastes better to me, must be the Coke residue . . .
A marketing scam? I just bought my son a popsicle, which is colored sugar water, for $1.50. And this morning I paid $1.75 for a cup of hot water with a small bag of tea leaves in it. Welcome to our capitalistic consumer society . . . .
Ummm . . . is this question for real? consider that you pay more for a gallon of bottled water than you do a gallon of gas. Now compare that most of the oil is shipped in supertankers from way overseas, processed, and then shipped to your gas station. Meanwhile, any yokel with a license can pour water out of a tap into a plastic bottle in Pittsburgh and sell it to you for $1.50 a half liter.
I get this stuff delivered because it really is good stuff. But after reading these articles lately I 'm not sure I 'll continue.
Once I drop a nuun tablet in it it really doesn’t matter what it used to taste like does it?
Don’t know if you guys saw that Andy Rooney thing on 60 Minutes about bottled water, but he took several to a lab to have them tested, and the guy that ran the lab, who was apparently a “water expert” reported that tap water is much better for you than bottled water because it contains necessary minerals that are leeched out by the bottled water companies.
This is far from being an (American) phenomenon. In fact at least in America the bottles go into the landfill or are recycled. This is a global problem. One example is Bulgaria. The absolutely first thing you will notice upon arrival are the plastic bags and bottles strewn literally everywhere. This is what happens when the modern consumer economy and its packaging and marketing arrives in a country with a poor sanitation infrastructure. I’ve been in remote, beautiful parts of the Rhodope Mtns there and followed rivers for 60 miles where every single tree, boulder and bank was covered with plastic debris from the river’s last flood stage.
My tap water tastes like lake water. I actually had the city come out to test it because it was so ‘flavorful.’ They said there was nothing wrong with it… hmmm
I just got one of those Pur filters that attaches to the faucet, and I’m really happy with it. But, I’d drink tap water before I’d buy bottled water.
read the article. you will revise your opinion.
OK I read the article and nowhere in there did I see a comparison of our (American) bottled water consumption per capita vs other country’s. And actually that’s besides the point. I’m telling you, because I’ve seen it with my own eyes and don’t need an article to tell me this, that bottled water and plastic bags are a global problem, one among many, and that America, while it is a major contributor to the problem, is not the only culprit and (according to the article) has the size and clout to take steps to lessen the problem. Do you think Russians and Germans and Chinese and Filipinos aren’t drinking bottled water too? They are.
