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I just received my annual water bill, a tiny 158 dollars. It informed me that I will pay .00375 cents per gallon.
When bottled water is even 5 a pint or 40 per gallon, that is roughly 10,000 times higher. It is often at 30,000 times higher.as many venues charge 15 a pint.
Even at a buck a pint , that is still thousands of times more , for exactly the same stuff that falls, every time it rains.
I do have a water filter through the fridge, but, the water straight from the faucet is fine.
I could see if bottled water was maybe ten cents a pint, for the packaging and the like, but….!
For the 40 percent of the population that is good at math, please, check my figures to ensure accuracy. I am a part of the 80 percent that are not good in math.
Please, before we talk stocks and bonds, etc., cease getting ripped off buying water. And I will not talk about wasting money on green hair, body piercings, tattoos and the financially challenged buying expensive German brand SUVS , financing them for eight years, etc.
Michael, where do you live that a years worth of water is only $158? Is that for a house or something else? The only bottled water I use is distilled water, which I use for drinking water after our water was contaminated with cryptosporidium in 1993 here in Milwaukee. The distilled water is also chlorine free. I buy two gallons a week at a little over a dollar a gallon.
The best well water I’ve ever had was at a small rental cabin that I stayed at over night right, next to the shore of Lake Superior this past summer in upper Michigan. It almost fizzed coming out of the faucet.
I work in NYC. There is no need to drink bottled water. Yet bottled water is distributed at most work events. It’s an enormous waste. Most bottles are not recycled, and even recycling plastic produces a huge amount of waste. They could easily have paper cups and a pitcher of water. Or, as one department meeting I go to, where they serve food, says in their email reminders, bottled water will not be provided, please feel free to bring your own.
Worse than this is the general attitude that tap water is bad or dirty. I work in research science. It’s maddening that scientists think this way. I find it difficult to trust their professional science thinking when they are scared of NYC tap water.
It’s easy to reuse bottles by filling them with tap water. In the winter especially, when chlorine is added to the water, I fill an electric kettle with water and boil off the chlorine. When it cools, I have water for two or three days, or I refill my bottle. It’s cheap and easy and doesn’t produce a pile of empty bottles.
As a thrifty person, I can say that there is no shortage of things that folks spend $ on that seem foolish to others. But, it is kind of important not to jump to conclusions when you look at that case of bottled drinking water in someone’s shopping cart.
Virtually all children who are growing up these days participate in team sports like soccer. For every game some parent has to provide bottled water. Then, of course, there are those whose source of water comes from a well and tastes terrible, or is cloudy/colored. And, how many CPAP machines or others with disabilities who are buying gallons of distilled water? And, finally, there are places which have very, very hard water and without bottled water, they must either have a water softener or buy bottled water. Water softeners increase sodium levels and folks with blood pressure issues must watch this.
If you are fortunate to live somewhere with delicious, soft, safe tap water you should enjoy it because a lot of people cannot.
Requiring parents to provide bottled water is a terrible idea. It teaches bad habits as all those bottles used resources when they were made and will pollute the environment when they are discarded (perhaps 30% of water bottles are actually recycled). Surely everyone can bring their own reusable bottle and one parent can bring a larger supply of water.