A Blog About Making Culture
Bottled Water Is Still A Scam
July 3, 2007
Bottled water in America is generally less healthy than tap water, extraordinarily more expensive, and far more destructive to the environment. It’s something I started blogging about years ago, and thanks to an an exceptional package of stories in Fast Company, I had a reminder to revisit the issue.
From my old post:
In case you don’t know, bottled water is an incredible scam. I used to help out with running a water company when I was a kid, so I got a good background in the stringent set of requirements that utilities must meet when providing drinking water to a community. Generally, bottled water doesn’t have to meet standards that are anywhere near as tightly regulated in regards to contaminants, filtering, or purity. Not to mention the fact that waterwhich stagnates in plastic containers on supermarket shelves frequently has a higher bacteria count than water from public utilities.
Meanwhile, the Fast Company article adds an incredible amount of new specifics, particularly about the explosive growth in sales of bottled water. As Charles Fishman says,
Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week 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 81/3 pounds a gallon. It’s so heavy you can’t fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water—you have to leave empty space.) Meanwhile, one out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water. The global economy has contrived to deny the most fundamental element of life to 1 billion people, while delivering to us an array of water “varieties” from around the globe, not one of which we actually need. That tension is only complicated by the fact that if we suddenly decided not to purchase the lake of Poland Spring water in Hollis, Maine, none of that water would find its way to people who really are thirsty.
It’s worth reiterating that Aquafina and Dasani are just tap water. There’s nothing wrong with that, since tap water is very good water — it’s just not worth paying 500 times as much for. I don’t have any argument against the convenience factor, either, since it makes perfect sense to take water with you when you’re on the go. You’ll just get something that’s got less bacteria and generally better quality if you fill your bottle from your tap. It’s also worth checking out this story for the slideshows that are displayed alongside it; These usually just seem like blatant attempts for magazines to increase their page views online, but in this case they seem to have actually included original content and research.
Some of the other points made in the article:
- Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water.
- If the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
- 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.
- The bubbles in San Pellegrino are extracted from volcanic springs in Tuscany, then trucked north and injected into the water from the source.
- We pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year—in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic.
- Worldwide, 1 billion people have no reliable source of drinking water; 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from tainted water.
I’d encourage everybody to take a look at the Fast Company article — it makes it clear that the costs of bottled water, aside from its extraordinarily expensive price, are simply not worth it. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that a lot of experts think the next resource that will spark a wide-scale international conflict isn’t going to be oil, but fresh drinking water.
Thanks to Lisa for the article link and to Philippe for the photo.
Previously: The New Plessy v. Ferguson
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Anil Dash: Bottled Water Is Still A Scam: Anil Dash: Bottled Water Is Still A Scam: It’s worth reiterating that Aquafina and Dasani are just tap water. There’s nothing wrong with that, since tap water is very good water — it’s just not worth paying 500 times as much for. I don’t have any argum... read more »Clicked
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I find that one of the main reasons I buy bottled water is that they make a cheap readily available container for tap water. I use a bottle until it starts to smell a little and then figure I should probably spring for a new bottle of water.
I however admit (confess?) this is not the most responsible use of resources. Has anyone done any research on the best portable and refillable containers for water?
Also, any thoughts on water filters like those offered by Brita? I find that I prefer the taste of water that has been filtered. It often tastes cleaner and less “chemically” to me even if those tastes I am detecting are safe.
Tony
Great information, Anil. I’ve always thought it odd that anyone would buy what can be had by opening a tap, and the points about who gets the water are right on. But on the other hand, are water bottling companies selling water or are they selling convenience? When you lay out 2 bucks for that Dasani, is it for the water or the bottle it’s in?
Douglas Karr
Perhaps I’m getting old, but I remember when local officials were voted in and out of office based on the quality and taste of the water in town.
Water where I live leaves rust-colored rings in the sinks, baths and toilets that are almost impossible to clean off. The water tastes terrible as well. When I lived in Denver it was much better.
I think one of the terrible byproducts of bottled water is that we’ve let our local officials off the hook to supply us with great-tasting, clean water.
Sacca
I wrote a post a year ago about this subject including a photo that was on an internal mailing list at Google.
That image imprinted deeply on me and has made any subsequent bottles taste like petrol to me.
Chris Barts
The argument is nuanced for people who live outside the city and drink well water. Their tap water is often not very good and can be quite hard, though it is still safe to drink. It is more difficult to fault those people for buying bottled water, especially given that they’re buying it instead of soda or juice (whereas a city-dweller is buying bottled water as opposed to not buying anything).
dave
Surely this is a business opportunity?
Call your company “Tap Water” and and sell local water, straight from the tap, but put into the most eco-friendly bottles you can find. Encourage people in restaurants and at home to drink “Tap Water” straight from the tap, but buy your “Tap Water” when out and about.
Not only can you advertise against Fiji water being transported miles by air, spring water being transported hundreds of miles by truck, you can even beat Dasani by not wasting energy re-treating water, just test it to ensure it’s quality and work with local water companies to ensure the quality.
If you then gave some large percentage of your profits to providing clean drinking water to the entire world (which also happens to open up new markets for you to sell portable tap water) and you’ve got a killer green product.
You could also sell branded re-usable containers so that people can advertise that they’re drinking tap water (in an iPod earbud style).
I have to admit this might work better in countries (like Scotland or Wales) or regions where people are already proud of their water.
I just realised you could work the nationalist, keep jobs local angle too. I can’t believe no-one’s done this already.
Steve
When I was in school at Syracuse, I kept used glass Gatorade bottles in the fridge, filled with water, so the water was very cold and readily transportable; over the course of a couple of years in my apartment, the bottoms of these bottles (which I hand washed, FWIW) became crusted with calcites and various other detritus. No big deal, in the grand scheme, but it certainly left me with a sense of how well filtered the city water (or my pipes in the apartment) were back then at least (early nineties).
We drink a lot of bottled water at the office; I figure it’s probably healthier to drink a gallon of bottled water a day than a six pack of Cokes (which is what I used to do). The other day was the first time in several years that I got a bottle of water that I thought was probably foul - tasted like ditch water. So I guess I’ve been lucky in that respect. Here in NC, city water simply isn’t cold when it comes out of the tap, like the well water was where I grew up in Maine, and we don’t have an ice maker at the office. So I suppose I could go back to my glass Gatorade bottles and keep them in the fridge, but hey. Do they even make those bottles anymore?
On the bottler front, my mom is a (now retired) groundwater geologist, and according to her, most Poland Spring water comes from watering the golf course above the “spring”. But she may have been kidding, so YMMV.
Anonymous
I think Mos Def summed it up pretty well in “New World Water”.
Stéphane
My wife and I buy as little bottle water as possible and, as shmuel said, we usually refill the few bottles we buy with tap water.
The thing is, water is so important to human health that no one should not drink bottled water (or as little as possible). The one best investment we did make in our home was a sophisticated water purification system. It cost us over $6000 (Canadian) but it was worth every penny.
The main system removes chlorine, smell and taste with a (huge) activated carbon filter tank then the water goes through a different tank filled with a special resin that takes out heavy metals as well as lots of other stuff but mostly it removes the hardness of the water.
In our small town, the water didn’t smell and wasn’t too chlorinated but it was very hard and stained sinks, the bathtub and the toilet with yellow hard water residue that was also near impossible to wash out. This problem is completely gone for us. Clothes feel softer and showering is a very different experience than before (softened and “de-chlorinated” water does not remove natural skin oils). For someone like me that suffers from dry skin isues, this alone was worth the investment.
But closer to the topic at hand, we now have a separate tap connected to a reverse osmosis filtration system in our kitchen and we only drink and cook that water. Again, huge difference. The water has no foreign taste or smell and it feels pure and more refreshing somehow. Plus, I am able to drink more of it more easily. It’s a huge difference from even Brita filtered water which will remove most of the taste and smell but not to the extent of a complete water treatment system.
We bring plastic bottles at work and only drink “our” water now. We bough largish heavy plastic bottles that we wash in the dishwasher once in a while. We bring our filtered tap water to work or on car trips or whatever and we feel much better for it.
I know that not everyone can afford such a system but it made such a difference to such a fundamental part of our lives that I would recommend one to anybody who’s concerned with the quality of their water.
peterme
NPR recently featured a story on this very issue.
Bottled water is among the stupidest qualities of modern living I can imagine. Well that, and re-electing Bush. The only time I end up drinking bottled water is on road trips, where it can be otherwise hard to find just plain old tap water.
It’s also worth noting that world famous restaurant Chez Panisse is now serving tap water.
miconian
I drink bottled water constantly, usually Volvic or Poland Spring. It just tastes a lot better than tap water.
I’m under no illusions that I’m making the world a better place by doing this. Paying for something that I enjoy does not mean that I’m a sucker, and the people selling it to me are not committing a scam. The fact that you don’t even mention the possibility that some bottled water may actually taste better to some people indicates that you really don’t have a solid grasp of the situation at all.
Elliott Back
Not to rain on your parade, but this is a business. They don’t care if their water is inefficient and worse than tapwater. As long as there is market demand, they have no reason to stop. OK, so you don’t like bottled water, but millions of others do.
Anil
Peter, thanks for the link!
Michael (miconian), I’m sorry that you don’t care about the impacts of your choices. I’m far from perfect in terms of my resource footprint on the world, but most moral people I know do care about such things. That’s who I had in mind while writing the post.
As far as the issue of taste goes, I haven’t found any indication that water quality in Hoboken, where you live, has any impurities that would affect taste. I’m quite sure that if you ran your water through a cheap Brita filter, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between your bottled water and tap water. Hoboken Water Supplies lists very few contaminants, and the info there certainly seems in line with the impurities in Polan d Spring’s sourcing.
Elliott, I do understand it’s a business driven by demand. I think by educating people, we can reduce demand for a wasteful product, or at least increase the pressure on the businesses to be more efficient in their use of resources.
Scott
am i the only one who prefers the “taste” of tap water? not that there is much of a difference, if there is a difference at all…
Robin Capper 
Drinkable tap water is such a luxury, how many don’t have that, it’s obsene abuse not to use it. It’s funny to see people complain about the price of petrol, while they happly pay far more for a bottle of water. I know which is easier to find, package and distribute…
sp
the easiest solution is buy a water filter. or, simply rock it old school…boil your tap water and then put it in the fridge. it’s not a complex procedure. tap + pot + heat = fresh, safe water.
i’m sorry, but spending $2 on a bottle of water is idiotic. if you don’t see the obvious stupidity of bottled water you’re worthless to out society.
go to a bicycle store. spend a few bucks on a good camelback or similar sports bottle and just refill it.
Andy in Mass
Daaa, did anybody else notice the irony of the automated advertisements for bottled water at the bottom of this page?
ps. Is there any truth to Evian purposefully spelling naive backwards?
Todd
Bottled water is a convenience. Many people have cut way down on soda drinking, for health/weight reasons. So, instead they buy a bottled water as an easy, convenient, available, portable, disposable water source.
They probably refill that water bottle with tap water. They probably just drink tap water at home.
Maybe more people should get in the habit of carrying Nalgene bottles with them everywhere they go. But, until then, buying a water bottle is a nice option to have.
Anonymous
I’ll quit drinking bottled spring water when our governments quit putting fluoride in our tap water. Fluoride is not healthy for any human being.
Hilda
Heres a couple thoughts to chew on though…
if so many of the residents at these places we buy bottled water from (ex: fiji) don’t have drinkable water, and if we didn’t buy that water its not like it would get to the residents who need it - its only an argument FOR buying drinking water - you are putting money back into that country’s economy and helping them in a small way.
Like wine… water from all over the world tastes different and needs to be experienced… there are plenty of people who can’t afford wine, but does that mean the people who can shouldn’t try wine from all over the world because its a luxury?
Also, if you live in an area and drink water from there for your whole life, you start getting a build up of the minerals/additives that are in that water… granted if you live in an area where the minerals/additives to the water has health benefits or no effect at all, thats great… but if you live in a place where the minerals/additives naturally occuring in the water has negative benefits, than over time you will be better off mixing it up, tap water + bottled water…
Anonymous
Why are we letting corporations control our water? Soon they’ll control the air,too.
By the way, here in Brooklyn the tap water is delicious!
Stephen Downes
I don’t think bottled water is a scam. A dollar or two for a convenient refillable plastic bottle with a drinking nozzle is actually a pretty good deal.
Cory
Why do only focus on people that enjoy bottled water and let the soda/juice drinkers off the hook. While one out of six people in the world have no dependable, safe drinking water; we add sugar, food coloring and various chemicals to out perfectly good water, eroding its nutritional value. Soda/juice drinking seems no less morally irresponsible to me. Although I have a readily available source of tasty tap water in my house, I don’t when I’m driving in my car or walking around town. So there are situation where buying water makes sense to me. Bottled water has a valid place in the marketplace, so unless you are willing to give up all bottled beverages it seems a little hypocritical to single out water.
Steve R Leno
I can see your point that it is really not necessary to use bottled water in your home or office, and I agree their is a certain degree of “hipness” attributed to certain brands. But, when you are on the go, for me, it is essential to have that option (and I am no brand snob, what ever is least expensive in a managable sized container). I don’t like drinking soda and if you are on the road, getting a drink from a gas station, it is perfect. Especially in Arizona. Considering all the calories, and sugar in pop, and all the chemicals in diet pop, isn’t that a valid choice to have available. And if you are really concerned about the environmental impact then why aren’t Coke, Pepsi, etc just as guilty with their other products. They are packaged the same way? Yes, I suppose I could use a fountain drink cup and get water from the weird water tab on the dispenser, but you want to talk about tasting bad? what comes our of that spout can barely be called water.Yuck! And again, where does my cup go to die?
People just need to stop following the marketing. Most bottled water is not better for you than your tap water. Most people can’t really tell a difference in brands. It doesn’t make you look cool. But water, in any form, is a better option than the other junk that is shoved down our throats by these companies.
Anonymous
to shmuel, and anyone else who has trouble finding a container for water- nalgene bottles are virtually unbreakable, come in a variety of sizes, can be thrown in the dishwasher, and are very handy for always having water with you. you can buy them at REI (http://www.rei.com/search?vcat=REI_SEARCH&query=nalgene) or any outdoor store or probably lots of other places. i have mine always. in talking to my sister about why she throws away six plastic water bottles a day, it seems the issue is temperature - and maybe that is part of the taste issue too, because i find people at a movie theater where i work much prefer cold water. if that’s the case, buy two bottles, and just chill and switch. good for the environment, your health, your wallet…
Edward
Looks like it is time to push for more drinking water fountains in public spaces. I use these when I find the them and the water usually tastes okay.
zaiken
@shmuel:
water bottles contain bisphenol A (BPA) a chemical that has recently been demonstrated unsafe in peer-reviewed scientific journals. BPA mimics the effects of estrogen in the body.
The original safety experiments on BPA have been shown to be inadequate and imprecise.
Reuse of a water bottle greatly, greatly increases the amount of BPA leached out of the bottle. Especially, cleaning the bottle with detergent, placing acidic liquids (i.e. juice) in the bottle and placing hot water in the bottle will accelerate this leaching.
There’s a lot of debate about this online, check it out. Note that there’s also a lot of industry-sponsored “debate” out there. regardless, 90% of 130 non-industry sponsored articles have found BPA to be harmful.
Mike
I was working in geneva and used to buy a 2l bottle of evian each morning on my way to work. After a couple of months it dawned on me I could actually see the evian mountains from my desk and all i had to do was turn on a tap to get the exact same water for free!
jb
shmuel - Spend a few bucks to get a 32oz Nalgene bottle from Amazon. Throw a couple slices of lemon in it every morning before you leave. You have great water all day long.
Biff
I agree with shmuel, it’s more about the container. I buy a bottle on Monday morning, and it lasts the whole week. Simply re-fill at work.
kareem
thanks for writing this, anil.
i got cranky about this same issue last november and did some research on alternative to the bacteria-infested plastic bottles i re-used over and over.
the bottle i found and bought for me and my gf is a Sigg.
i love it. it’s metal, keeps the water cold, and has a special treatment inside the bottle so that the water doesn’t taste metallic.
$20 on amazon for a 1L bottle is a pretty good deal for a close-to-zero environmental footprint.
i love this david suzuki line, too: “I think that we’ve got to drink the water that comes out of our taps, and if we don’t trust it, we ought to be raising hell about that.” (source)
Shannon
He forgot to mention one important point: We drink bottled water because it tastes good. Tap water/municipal water smells like crap and tastes like crap too. That’s the number one reason we drink bottled water.
PLC
Nalgene bottles will befoul the taste of your water after a very short while; I use Nalgene bottles while hiking and they generally last about 3 months before the water is undrinkable. SIGG bottles taste metallic to me.
Also, a lot of bottled water is carbonated, and some people prefer carbonation. My wife drinks Propel water because she prefers the taste to tap water. I’m not sure how this is any different than any other type of consumption.
Nate
Even if you reuse your purchased water bottles with regular tap water, you still end up advertising for the bottling companies that contribute to the overall waste. Then others will continue to follow this trend of wasting valuable resources.
Voyuer
When I was in school at Syracuse, I kept used glass Gatorade bottles in the fridge, filled with water, so the water was very cold and readily transportable; over the course of a couple of years in my apartment, the bottoms of these bottles (which I hand washed, FWIW) became crusted with calcites and various other detritus. No big deal, in the grand scheme, but it certainly left me with a sense of how well filtered the city water (or my pipes in the apartment) were back then at least (early nineties).
We drink a lot of bottled water at the office; I figure it’s probably healthier to drink a gallon of bottled water a day than a six pack of Cokes (which is what I used to do). The other day was the first time in several years that I got a bottle of water that I thought was probably foul - tasted like ditch water. So I guess I’ve been lucky in that respect. Here in NC, city water simply isn’t cold when it comes out of the tap, like the well water was where I grew up in Maine, and we don’t have an ice maker at the office. So I suppose I could go back to my glass Gatorade bottles and keep them in the fridge, but hey. Do they even make those bottles anymore?
On the bottler front, my mom is a (now retired) groundwater geologist, and according to her, most Poland Spring water comes from watering the golf course above the “spring”. But she may have been kidding, so YMMV.
Water Junkie
I strictly drink bottled water. I’ve drank tap water 3 times in 4 yrs. All three were in restaurants. One was a glass of water because they didn’t offer bottled water. One was in the Cheesecake Factory where they had replaced their bottled water with tap water and the other was at Salt Grass restaurant where they did the same thing.
Since I have had only spring bottled water in 4 yrs, I am very sensitive to the smells and taste of tap water.
Try drinking nothing but bottled water for a few months. I guarantee if you then take a sip of tap water you’ll notice how stinky and sewage like the water smells and tastes.
I don’t feel bad for drinking bottled water - but, yes, I also realize it’s horribly overpriced.
~ Water Junkie
Rob
Shmuel; Somewhere in my remote memory I recall such a container for transporting individual quantities of water. I believe they called it a ‘canteen’.
Steve
I use bicycle water bottles for carrying water around with me. They are inexpensive and last forever…
Derek W.
Yes, Aquafina and Dasani are tap water, but it’s tap water that has been filtered through reverse osmosis and charcoal filtering. This greatly improves the taste. I usually don’t drink bottled water anyways, I drink distilled water.
Anonymous
I’ve only seen one other person address Fluoride in tap water. 98% of Europe does not fluoridate there water. Why do we do it??
http://www.fluoridealert.org/limeback.htm
Gary
So many, many consumers don’t realize that if they have a fridge made in the past 6-7 years it probably has a built-in consumer-replaceable water filter. The same filter is used to filter water for the ice maker and water dispenser. Then, you can fill that nice bottle with water that is filtered, and the filter specs actually tell you what is removed from the water! Yes, I work for a company that sells same.
Jordan
I think you miss one point: it’s not the general water condition I fear, it’s the quality of the pipes in my home.
I’ve lived in a number of much older residences in the past few years, and while I don’t fear the water coming from the source, I fear that once it makes it onto my house, it’s being contaminated with rust, bacteria, or both. Ick.
Dileepan
Another very important angle is that Bottled water may be harmful as well, due to the slow leaching of an estrogen-like compound, which is used to provide the clarity in the plastic ued to bottle water, but which probably ends up majorly interfering with the body’s hormonal balance! Some scientists now wonder if this has had a hand in the obesity epidemic in modern society. In a few years we will have a definitive answer — but it may be a few years too late to switch, for some of us.
Gramage
I buy bottled water when I’m at work, because all the taps near me are about two feet from a whole lot of raw fish. Even the ones that aren’t are in sinks used to clean dishes etc, and the water tastes all soapy. I do reuse the bottles though, filling them at home.
dave
Fiji water has got to be the biggest scam of them all.
Robere'
Which is more harmful, bottled water or soda pop?
Yes bottled water is a rip. Yes it is another waste of plastic, etc., etc. But when your thirsty how much damage does bottled water do compared to other packaged drinks?
Previously I’ve gone weeks without a drink of water. I’m not alone. Coke, Pepsi, various sports drinks… Convenient, readily available, often cheaper.
Yes, those bottles are a problem but what is in them often a greater problem by orders of magnitude.
People often make similar comments to what has been written here as I pull a bottle of water from the coolers these days as though I’m stupid, foolish and uninformed. I’m drinking water people. Not the sugars, not the syrups.
Jeriatric
I have read all the comments (some several times). It has been an eye opener. I have checked the water supply in my area (Newark, N.J.) and it seems to be above average. I do use a Britta filter for piece of mind. Thanks for the link and the info.
Is there a similar web site that lists the pollutants in all the popular bottled water? Some areas may find that commercial bottle water contains the same or more pollutants and that boiling+refrig is the best way to go.
Is there a general recommendation for a long term water container?
JD
Our tap water here really sucks. And, from a friend who works in the tap water business, it’s not always clean; “accidents” happens from time to time.
Also, at least in my country, we have labels that states that the water comes from a source (and not from tap water). The only problem is the plastic bottles. I wish there would be more glass ones.
Also, don’t keep plastic bottles for too long; they release some particules in the water after a while…
RedRoo
How dopey is Amazon promoting bottled water on this page. I suppose some bot reads “water” in the tag clould and drops the ad on the page. Seems incredibly ironic. PS. A charcoal water filter jug does a good job of purifying tap water, I’ve used one for years. PPS. In Victoria, Australia, in the midst of our worst drought in a hundred years, Coca Cola-Amital has been paying a measly 5c a gigalitre for the water they resell at exorbitant rates. I refuse to support these corporate parasites.
Anonymous
ANIL is right on. If you consider that New York City has probably the Worlds best water that’s gravity fed from the Catskill mountains and Delaware region of NY and the number of bottled water consumption in the ‘city’ it’s just mind numbingly silly. I live far north of NYC and rely on well water that has been contaminated with MTBE and had to connect to another source. City dwellers should buy their bottles and send them to those that truly need them.
c.
On Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit”, they had an episode on bottled water. They offered a “water tasting” at a resturaunt, claiming the water came from exotic locations when it really came from a garden hose. The tasters were convinced each sample was unique and tasted soooo much better than their tap water, making you wonder how they could have possibly missed the rubber hose taste.
I’ve lived in several places and have always had good tasting (hard) tap water. Bottled water and softened water both taste horrible to me. I use a convenience store refillable cup, and have had my current one for over 7 years now.
TS
Bottled water is not a scam, and the fact that you have such a strong position on it shows you are unprofessional. Some brands are not much more than tap water, but other brands have a certain minimum amount of minerals in it. Tap water can contain flourides and chlorine (which has been linked to heart disease) and other chemicals. It can also be lacking in minerals like iodine which can make you seriously ill (if you don’t get enough iodine). You can in no way categorically state that all tap water is great and all bottled water is a scam, there is too great a difference in both of them depending on the source. In the EU (don’t know about US) there is a distinction between “Spring Water” which can be anything, and “Mineral Water” which has to have a minimum amount of certain minerals in it. It’s not so simple as you make it. And it’s not a “scam”, companies have high costs in bottling and distribution and marketing etc etc. which makes the water expensive.
suze
I used to live in NY where you can drink the water and thought it was a lame LA affectation. Then I moved to CA (work)and realised that you really cannot drink tap water in LA. Come visit, have a taste. Drink Brita filtered or bottled if you are in LA. Trust me on this.
Elaine
I grew up in LA and drank tap water all my life. It’s not great, but it’s not undrinkable, either.
It still cracks me up when people complain about the tap water here (western WA) as I find it incredibly tasty by comparison. I drink the tap water at the office, which everyone told me was terrible, and I think it’s fine. :)
Thanks for the reminder to get a real water bottle — I occasionally get a bottled water while I’m out & about and then use it until it grosses me out.
Streamate
Nalgene bottles will befoul the taste of your water after a very short while; I use Nalgene bottles while hiking and they generally last about 3 months before the water is undrinkable. SIGG bottles taste metallic to me.
Also, a lot of bottled water is carbonated, and some people prefer carbonation. My wife drinks Propel water because she prefers the taste to tap water. I’m not sure how this is any different than any other type of consumption.
ReVeLaTeD
Here’s the deal.
Tap water is absolutely TERRIBLE. Now maybe in areas like Colorado this isn’t the case. I’m in Southern California (close to Tijuana, which is notorious for poor quality water), and there is a distinct difference. Restaurants around here serve straight tap water, and it’s all disgusting - the copper taste is there all the time.
I pay for Sparkletts deliveries and I’m happy with the water quality. It’s all I use in my coffee maker and all I use for regular drinking. Sometimes I order the standard travel bottles, but I don’t refill them from the tap - I refill them from the water cooler so it’s still the same fresh water.
I honestly don’t know how people can drink that copper-tasting water. Water shouldn’t have a flavor.
Anil
Here’s the deal. Shipping drinking water from goddamn Fiji and creating mountains of waste out of plastic bottles is a ridiculous, and costly, solution to the coppery taste of your water. Simply getting an inexpensive filtering system and filling a reusable bottle will save you money and time and the absurdity of wating for a truck to bring water to a building that already has indoor plumbing.
Jordan
Sorry Anil, I guess the rest of us didn’t realize that the only bottled water available was from Fiji. I was under the impression that bottles that don’t have the “Fiji” logo on them were probably taken from somewhere in the continental US — where they were distilled, as their packages say, to make the water cleaner. Moreover, I was also under the impression that plastic can be recycled, but that’s mostly because I keep dumping my water bottles into that blue plastic bin out back.
Anil
Oh, c’mon, I’m not being an extremist about this — I totally understand that bottled water has its uses and can be more convenient sometimes, and that plastic can be recycled. I just hate the blatant intellectual dishonesty of pretending it’s easier to go to a store and buy something 1000x more expensive, and even worse I think that most people wouldn’t choose to be so wasteful if they had a reminder of the implications of that choice. So that’s what I tried to point out.
Network Geek
Anil makes very good points, which are largely supported by both common sense and some judicious searching for actual studies. I, also, reuse bottles until they get funky or lost, relying on the filter in my fridge to get the last bit of impurities the city misses.
As a total side note, does anyone else find it ironic that the “smart” advertising banner at the bottom of the page is trying to sell bottled water?
veronica
This is so disgusting. I shared your article here: http://www.unboundedition.com/content/view/1503/50/
justG
I was born and raised in NYC and drank tap water all my life. I didn’t realise just how good I had it until I left NY and moved first to Phoenix and then to Orlando, in both of which cities the tap water is undrinkable. I had a reverse osmosis system installed in Phoenix, but have been buying bottled water here (buying once and refilling for a fraction of the cost). Not only is the taste of tap water here disgusting, but after the hurricanes a few years ago, the quality of the water deteriorated even more - fill a glass with tap water, set it down, walk away, come back when it’s settled and you’ll see crap at the bottom of the glass, no special sediment-finding machine necessary.
I could’ve installed a filtre, as has been suggested, but not knowing how long I’d be staying here, it was a matter of convenience to refill the bottles instead.
I’m moving back to NY this week and the first thing I’m going to do is have a glass of tap water. Can’t freaking wait.
H2Whoah
I just have to defend aquafina when you say it is tap water. Not true. It is water treated by a process called Reverse Osmosis. Tap water will vary but in my area tap water measures approximately 180 parts per million of total dissoved solids. After reverse osmosis it measures at about 6. What did we remove? Byproducts of chlorine like trihalomenthanes for one. (known to cause cancer at high enough levels) It also removes the dissoved rock, and a high percentage of anything in the water. I am not a fan of bottled water but I am a fan of high quaility water and chlorine is not meant for human consumption.
Dominic Todarello
Do water filters (like the one’s in refrigerators) acutally do any good. 3 Filters are $65. They last about 2 years (total). Is filtered water better than tap water? And of course, is bottled water really filtered? If not, why purchase bottled water? Also, is filtered and then boiled water (chilled) in the frig even better?
hmm
I just want to say that everyone keeps talking about the waste and oil used to make the products. keep in mind tap water has chemicals that are not meant for human consumption like chlorine and floride. Also as some have said the pipes our tap water comes through are old and have lead and rust and other bacteria in them. I understand protecting our planet but what about protecting ourselves? honestly id rather take a chance with the bottled water. the number of cancer causing chemicals that get filtered out of our water is worth it. a pal who has cancer actually was instructed to drink voss.. its in glass. i dont know. i do not drink unfiltered tap water.
aussie83
Great read…thanks.
I can’t help but notice the Google Ads on the right hand side…there is one ad for MtFranklin water (owned by coke). LOL. Irony can be so funny.
Bob Jones
why the hell would you buy bottled water for so much money while tap water is avaiable for free at are homes (wtf):O
Anonymous
i keill you all
christianne
youre right bottled water has 2 much bacteria and 4rm dis day on i vow not to drink it eeeeeewwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:(
Streamate
I drink bottled water constantly, usually Volvic or Poland Spring. It just tastes a lot better than tap water.
I’m under no illusions that I’m making the world a better place by doing this. Paying for something that I enjoy does not mean that I’m a sucker, and the people selling it to me are not committing a scam. The fact that you don’t even mention the possibility that some bottled water may actually taste better to some people indicates that you really don’t have a solid grasp of the situation at all.
Anil 
The fact that you don’t even mention the possibility that an inexpensive water filter could give you the same taste as your bottled water means you didn’t read what I wrote. I also took the liberty of removing the spam link you left in your comment.
Michelle
Get more information about the quality of bottled water and its impact on the environment at www.bottledwaterblues.com
JESSI
i just want to say that i completely agree with the honest truth that bottled water is indeed a SCAM!! HOWEVER, i would also like to encourage all of you to GOOGLE… “dangers in our tap water and fluoride” and the ugly truth about the POSIONOUS AND LEATHAL(fluoride). There is a substantial amount of research proving the harmful effects of drinking tap water and brushing with fluoride. DON’T DO IT! we all know that our water has fluoride and even chlorine in it. if it is unsafe to drink it then definitley DON’T shower in it!!! Hello common sense.
(quote….)
“FACTS ABOUT FLUORIDE
- Fluoride is a waste by-product of the fertilizer and aluminum industry and it’s also a Part II Poison under the UK Poisons Act 1972.
Fluoride is one of the basic ingredients in both PROZAC (FLUoxetene Hydrochloride) and Sarin nerve gas (Isopropyl-Methyl-Phosphoryl FLUoride).
USAF Major George R. Jordan testified before Un-American Activity committees of Congress in the 1950’s that in his post as U.S.-Soviet liaison officer, the Soviets openly admitted to “Using the fluoride in the water supplies in their concentration camps, to make the prisoners stupid, docile, and subservient.” (end quote)
For years fluoride was classified as a toxic waste but manufacturers would have to pay millions to properly dispose of it… so they willingly keep it in the water that you drink. In the past it’s only approved uses were as an insecticide and also in RAT POSION!! countless studies have shown that Fluoridation has been linked to immune system alteration, musculoskeletal harm,genetic damage,thyroid dysfunction and all kinds of cancer. Fuoride can and will cause brain damage to babies. Of course there is more solid proof saying that fluoride is very very dangerous. Don’t put poisons in your body.
If that is enough to get your brain going then i would recommend checking more out on the subject. Very intersting and helpful.
I think the best way to fix the water dilema is to purchase a high quality reverse osmosis filtration system for all of your plumbing… including a filter for your shower.. And i would also recommend checking into changing from chlorinated products in your pools and hot tubs and go for something like bromide!!
I urge you all who read this to take the time to really research this data.
I wish you all great health. get educated about what you put in your body! and get educated on the sad truth about the evil coruptions of the government and FDA, and all of those corporate monopolies that promise you all that is… in truth (false).
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