Is Bottled Water Worth It?

Here is a very extensive article on bottled water from Fast Company. I'll highlight a few of their thoughts and add my comments. let's start with this:

Thirty years ago, bottled water barely existed as a business in the United States. Last year, Americans spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina and Dasani water than they spent on iPods or movie tickets -- $15 billion. It's expected to be $16 billion this year.

Yeah, but bottled water is better for you, right? Well, consider this:

24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. PepsiCo has the nation's top-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with 13% of the market. Coca-Cola's Dasani is No. 2, with 11% of the market. Both are simply purified municipal water, so 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience.

But most of it is healthier, right? Well:

Tap water in the U.S., with rare exceptions, is impressively safe. It is monitored constantly, and the test results are made public. Mineral water has a long association with medicinal benefits -- and it can provide minerals that people need -- but there are no scientific studies establishing that routinely consuming mineral water improves your health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in fact, forbids mineral waters in the United States from making any health claims.

Ok, so it tastes better, right? Well:

In blind taste tests, with waters at equal temperatures, presented in identical glasses, ordinary people can rarely distinguish between tap water, spring water and luxury waters. At the height of Perrier's popularity, Bruce Nevins was asked on a live network radio show one morning to pick Perrier from a lineup of seven carbonated waters served in paper cups. It took him five tries.

So why do we buy bottled water. One opinion:

When we buy a bottle of water, what we're often buying is the bottle itself, as much as the water. We're buying the convenience: A bottle at a 7-Eleven store isn't the same product as tap water, any more than a cup of coffee at Starbucks is the same as a cup of coffee from the Krups machine on your kitchen counter. And we're buying the artful story the water companies tell us about the water: where it comes from, how healthy it is, what it says about us. Surely, among the choices we can make, bottled water isn't just good -- it's positively virtuous.

And it comes at a very big price:

For this healthful convenience, we're paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half-liter Evian for $1.35 -- 17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren't paying attention.

In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from Yosemite National Park. It's so good the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, five months and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.

Not to mention the environmental impact:

Except for this: Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. About 1 billion bottles of water a week are moved around in ships, trains and trucks in the United States alone. That's a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs 8 1/3 pounds a gallon. It's so heavy you can't fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water -- you have to leave empty space.)

Plus you have bottles in landfills by the billions.

And as if this was not enough, consider the following:

Worldwide, 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water; 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water.

"We're completely thoughtless about handing out $1 for this bottle of water, when there are virtually identical alternatives for free. It's a level of affluence that we just take for granted. What could you do? Put that dollar in a jar on the counter instead, carry a water bottle, and at the end of the month, send all the money to Oxfam or CARE and help someone who has real needs. And you're no worse off."

Now I'm not condemning anyone for drinking bottled water -- I drink it myself on occasion -- but these are certainly some interesting points.

What we usually do if we're going out is to fill up water bottles (I have tons of them since I use them in cycling) from home and drink those. The only time we have bottled water is if we have it at friends' homes.

So, what do you think? Is this an issue? Or is it over-blown?

Comments

[Easy Finance]

I think, this is an issue. We do not need to spend so much money on bottled water. Regular tap water is just fine. Once in a while for convenience, we can buy the bottled water, but not for regular purposes.
I fill a gallon can with water, and have it in my car. Whenever I need it, I just drink it from that. But, I guess it is not practical during winter months.

[cephyn]

Drinking bottled water as your primary water source is expensive and unnecessary. I can understand the taste issue though - tap tastes bad in a LOT of places. But if you get a brita pitcher, you can get great tasting, cold water for pennies compared to bottled water. The only time I buy bottled water is if I'm going to be out hiking or something like that. For everyday use - brita pitcher and tap.

[Beef]

That's crazy!

I usually buy a 24 pack of bottled water at Menards for under $3 when it goes on sale (that's less than 8 cents a bottle). The only reason I purchase the above is for the bottles (not the water inside). I refill the bottles everyday for about a week or two or until the plastic starts smelling funkie.

Does anyone know of an alternative to this instead of toting around a glass bottle that can break at any second?

The big gatorade water jugs just don't smell right/good, which is why I don't use them.

[Thad]

Beef,
I have heard that Sigg water bottles are highly recommended, even over Nalgene bottles.

http://mysigg.com/

Thad

[Blaine Moore]

I don't mind bottled water for convenience, such as during a race. I refuse to pay for it, though. The water from the tap where I work tastes nasty, but I just bring a nalgene bottle to work with me every day and will fill it up at the elementary school nearby at lunch time. Everywhere else I go, I just refill my own water bottle from the tap.

[beef]

Thanks Thad!

It looks like their bottles are AL.

[Chris]

I rarely buy bottled water, but when I do I empty the bottle and refill it with filtered tap. After use I pull the labels off and put the bottles in the dishwasher and refill them and keep them in the fridge. They bottles last a long time.

[Kevin]

We use a Brita pitcher at home and it works for us. I never buy bottled water, if I want to take some with me, I use a sports bottle or an insulated coffee mug.

Honestly, I never thought of all the waste/pollution being generated while shipping bottles of water all over the place. To me that is just icing on the cake of not buying bottled water.

[Minimum Wage]

We sell a ton (literally) of this stuff where I work and I think it's nuts. We have a fountain Coke machine with a little tab for dispensing tap water, which we sell for 25 cents per cup (your choice of 16-24-32-44 oz cups). We probably sell 500 bottles ($0.80-$1.89) for every cup of water we sell. The fountain machine has a large top-loading bin for ice, so the drinks and water come out cold.

I'd like to see the option of buying an empty bottle (49-99 cents?) which you could refill with tap water (I'd install some sort of filtering device) for 25 cents.

Our bottle bill has been expanded to include returnable water bottles, that has not yet gone into effect.

[Anitra]

Beef and Chris: you're not actually supposed to reuse the bottled-water bottles. Buy any kind of bottle that is designed to be reused - Nalgene, sports bottles, or even a large travel mug or thermos.

Bottled water is a convenience that I rarely buy - generally if I am very thirsty and would prefer water over soda or iced tea. At home, I drink tap water - filtered or refrigerated if I don't like the taste out of the faucet.

[JenK]

When individual bottles of water go on sale, a case goes into the trunk of each car. This is used when stuck in traffic or when the alternative is 7-11. (Dehydration makes me stupid. Stupid when driving bad.)

When gallons of water go on sale AND the existing gallons in the emergency / earthquake kit are > 10 months old, we drink the old gallons and buy new. We find that pre-packed water stays fresh for a least a year; washed and re-filled milk jugs don't last more than a month. So, this is a convenience, but it's worth it for us.

[beef]

- Anitra

Do you know why your not supposed to reuse the bottles? I know they are degrade fairly quick but I never thought using it for a week or two would be bad.

- JenK

I am glad I live where I do - where traffic doesn't make me dehydrated and where disasters don't happen weekly!!

[m]

We use a water filter at home and fill up our thermos type containers from that for water while we are out. More environmentally friendly, and better for you (no plastics in the portable containers), and I think it's cheaper (haven't calculated but even with the cost of the filer, I think it comes out cheaper). I buy a bottle on the rare occasion when, for whatever reasons, I find myself very thirsty and without my thermos from home with me.

[brent]

In australia we've been going through the worst 'drought' in a thousand years.

I say 'drought' because it's actually climate CHANGE not climate ANOMALY.

This issue of bottled water is so far UNDER-blown that it makes me furious.

In 20 years time, my kids are going to die of thirst in a 21st century 1st world country.

----

@beef.

STOP BUYING WATER BOTTLES! It's not just the cost of the water, you monkey, it's the fact that you're using plastic just to drink. Put the tap water directly into the cup!

And, yes, there are THOUSANDS of water bottles available. http://www.kathmandu.com.au/14.html?category=accessories.hydration&id=-873836143 for example. I love my aluminium drinking bottle. It goes with me everywhere, including bushwalking. You don't HAVE to use gatorade bottles for your drink bottle

[Market Flavor]

Buy coke (KO) and drink Vitamin Water. Great product and it's moving mainstream.

People are craving the healthy alternative but it seams like most people don't want to drink a lot of water. Vitamin Water sure seems to be taking the reins.

[Pam]

I do think that it is an issue, but I also think that the bottled water market is being forced to take more than their share of the finger pointing. Yes, there are too many water bottles in the landfills and we can all do our part by recycling and reducing our use of them. But there are also a lot of other products that we buy too often out there that come in disposable containers that are thrown away instead of reused or recycled.

[Cindy]

The problem I have with tape water is the Chlorine in it. It smells and I heard Chlorine can cause cancer. I do not like bottled water either since you never know how long and where the bottle is stored. If the bottled water has been exposed to heat and sun, which brings another issue of becteria and antimony released from the plastic, not to mention the damage to our enviroment from the plastic bottles!
Our family have been using Sigg bottles and a products called LaCle Minerals for two years now. LaCle comes out like little tea bag, it not only get rid of the Chlorine from tape water, it also helps to alkalinize our body. The best part is it is so convenient, especially when we travel. As to the Sigg bottle, I found it makes water taste cleaner and fresher. The drawback is it will be dent sooner or later. I just love these two products! Anyone interested can go laclewater.com and take a look.

[Doug]

This issue is way, way overblown. The author of the Fast Company article makes a living on hit pieces against targeted industries. I see no reason to go after the bottled water industry...it seems a rather ridiculous target.

If people want spring water or treated tap water in bottles, leave them alone. The only negative I can see is what to do with the bottles, but that is not an issue specific to bottled water---we get all our liquids in plastic bottles. The water industry seems to be taking the lead in coming out with bottles that use less plastic (Nestle Waters just launched such a bottle).

There are plenty of ways to tote your tap water in containers if you do not want to buy bottled water. I like bottled water and I am going to continue buying it, and I would appreciate it if you would allow me that freedom.