Bottled water is stupid

Posted at 1:09 on Thursday August 11, 2005 | Filed Under Saving

I have detested bottled water since their popularity in the late 90s, when people started walking around with bottles as if they couldn't find potable water WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF ANYWHERE. Now I have some data to back up my disgust:

Ounce for ounce, it costs more than gasoline, even at today's high gasoline prices; depending on the brand, it costs 250 to 10,000 times more than tap water. Globally, bottled water is now a $46 billion industry.

Read the full NYTimes article (via This is Broken)
UPDATE: CBS News has a good article on this topic

PS--I'm back from vacation

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Comments (12)

1.: Unfortunately our tap water is not the best and after treating my dog for several UTI's, the vet recommended bottled water for her. I was already using a PUR filter but unfortunately it wasn't enough. Since switching several month ago, we haven't had any more problems. I buy it by the gallon at WalMart for 58cents. It does add up but not nearly as much as the vet bills and antibiotics!

Posted by Judy at August 11, 2005 07:32 AM

2.: Bottled water is a scam - you can buy the same type of Reverse Osmosis/Deionizing (RO/DI) equipment and install it in your kitchen for about $250 + roughly $40/year (or 5000 gallons) for filters. So, if the system (very conservatively) lasts you 5 years and if you use all of that capacity you're paying less than $0.02 per gallon.

But lets be realistic knowing that you're willing to pay $0.58/gallon for the water. The annualized cost of water treatment is $90, dividing by $0.58, and then by 52 weeks is 3 gallons per week. So, if you're buying at least that, you could have filtered for the same price and not have to lug 24 pounds of water home from the store.

Add to that the benefit of all the extra capacity to use for drinking yourself, cooking, watering your plants, whatever... and filtration systems are a huge bargain.

Posted by Ben at August 15, 2005 04:48 AM

3.: Wow--how interesting. Ben, I came to a totally different conclusion: Why even buy bottled water?

Of course you might buy it when you go out once in a while, etc.

But for normal daily tasks like cooking and drinking (and watering your plants??), isn't tap water good enough?

Posted by Ramit Sethi at August 15, 2005 09:24 AM

4.: I'm not suggesting that anyone buy bottled water - but there are any number of reasons to justify using purified water. Drinking water quality varies widely from city to city - and is affected further by the miles of pipes between the source and your faucet. Chlorine tastes bad - high concentrations of dissolved minerals and metals taste even worse. Sure, it's all potable - but paying a few cents a gallon to make it taste better is obviously worth it to a lot of people.

As for plants... (unpolluted) rain is basically pure and it's the natural source of water for most plants.. so I would say that if you had access to filtered water that was effectively free that you may as well use it since it's (probably) better for your plants.

Anyway.. Judy was saying that her water was so terrible that it was detrimental to her dog's health. I was just providing an alternative.

Me... I drink tap water most of time.

Posted by Ben at August 16, 2005 11:07 AM

5.: I have a bottled water rotation system. My wife and I buy a pack bottled water from Costco every 6 months or so. I refill the bottles by bringing home filtered water from work every day in a big thermos bottle. The water is just as good as bottled. After a while, the bottles get kinda nasty and we recycle them and get another set at Costco. It's kind of a balance (but it's really for the bottles since we don't feel bad if we loose them).

I also sometimes get Pelligrino which is SUPER expensive, but worth it once in a while. It's great when it's super chilled on a hot day.

Posted by Tommy at August 17, 2005 08:51 PM

6.: Bottled water for a pet!? That's ridiculous! How can people spend so much money on a stupid animal when there are people dying in Africa? Americans waste more than $300M on pets a year. Imagine what that can do for poverty...

Posted by John at August 23, 2005 12:16 PM

7.: Some people enjoy spending time with their pets, it's a hobby and it costs money. There's no point in criticizing someone for what they enjoy doing if it's not *directly* harming other people. Otherwise you may as well point the finger back at yourself.

Some might say that having a computer and paying for electricity and internet access is a waste of money. After all, there are people living on less than a dollar a day. You could feed, clothe and shelter someone in a 3rd world country for what most people spend on internet access. And then there's the time - why not go do charity work instead of wasting time reading blogs all day?

If there's one thing I've learned it's not to knock what anyone spends their time or money on -- what's wasteful to you is essential to someone else -- and vice versa.

Posted by Ben at August 26, 2005 11:00 AM

8.: Well said Ben. I would not rely to much on filtered/bottled water. The only way to get pure water the way nature intended is by getting a water distiller. The initial purchase is well worth it in the long run.

Posted by klauss at September 7, 2005 03:25 PM

9.: I drink bottled water about half the time. This is usually becasue 1) I percieve the tap or location to be 'unclean,' which in turn makes me feel like the water is dirty 2) I'm buying a drink and I don't like soda and so my only alternative is water.

Posted by dan at October 18, 2005 01:39 PM

10.: Ramit, I always carry a bottle of water, that I filtered at home. And I will never hesitate to buy a bottle of water from a store when I'm out of my home and my bottle of water has run out.

Unfiltered water might have many impurities in it and I think by using a filter, you are saving plenty of money because you wont fall sick because of impure water.

I've read/heard many horror stones of kidney stones that were produced by drinking tap water, unfiltered.

Posted by Kay at January 31, 2006 11:03 AM

11.: A few years ago, me, my then-fiance, my cat, and my guinea pig all got kidney stones around the same time. We all switched to bottled water. No more problems.

So, I am definitely a proponent of bottled water.

Posted by Vicki at September 16, 2006 12:38 PM

12.: While tap water is certainly bacteria free, despite what anyone tries to say, it is still not as healthy as bottled. Tap water goes through many miles of old pipes and is treated with chlorine and flouride. A lot of places have a hard water as well, which contributes to your kidney stones. People claiming tap water is just fine and people drinking bottled water are stupid are just trying to sound smart. If you don't want to spend your money on bottled water then don't. But don't tell me what to drink or not to drink.

Posted by Greg at September 17, 2006 05:31 AM

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