Bottled Water: What's All The Fuss? (Part 1)

In the past few years, a lot of attention has been drawn to bottled water. It's a hot topic and it should be! With all the resources and money that go into the water industry, people should get the facts straight.  My next few blog posts will compare bottled water to public water sources in the categories of price, quality, and environmental sustainability. Then we'll see who comes out on top.

The Price Point:

Personally, I think the concept of bottled water (in the United States) is completely silly. Day after day, I watch people buy bottled water, and day after day I think, "Don't all these people realize that there is essentially free water running out of sink?" Bottled water seems to be an economically irrational craze.

In order to see just HOW irrational of a craze, I thought I'd do a price comparison. I will use Boston water rates as my basis since that's where I live :)

PUBLIC WATER: The Boston Water and Sewage Commission says that a family consuming 180 gallons of water per day will have to pay $67.40 for a 31-day month. Working out the math, each gallon of water costs 1.2 pennies. Pretty daaarn cheap.

by contrast

PRIVATE WATER: On Amazon.com, I can buy a pack of six 0.5 Liter Dasani water bottles for $7.95.  Now, let's do that math.  That's almost eight dollars for 3 Liters of water or .79 gallons of water, making the price for a gallon of bottled water equal to $10.03!!!!

That means the price of bottled water is 835.8 times more than the price of water coming out of your tap.   I would think that this significant price disparity would make bottled water almost impossible to sell... yet people continue to buy it! As long as there is a market, there will be suppliers. And there are definitely suppliers. Water is the third largest global industry, behind oil and electricity- a 400 billion dollar global industry.

It doesn't seem right. It doesn't make sense. It certainly isn't economical.

So there you go, in a contest of money and practicality, I award 835 points to tap water and 1 to bottled water. Next time you are looking to quench your thirst, I would recommend saving yourself the extra $$ and heading to a faucet instead. I know I will.