The Great Big Joke that is Bottled Water

PLEASE NOTE: This seems to be the last post that this blog software will display despite the fact that I have entered a bunch of new posts since. They show up on the admin console but do not show to the public. I'm working on this... The Bottled Water industry is not just a Great Big Joke, it is an elephant in the living room. Something that everyone accepts but nobody comments on. Way overpriced (costs more than gasoline), is disruptive, polluting and unnecessary. From Common Dreams:

Bottled Water: Nectar of the Frauds?
Water, water everywhere and we are duped into buying it bottled.

Consumers spend a collective $100 billion every year on bottled water in the belief--often mistaken, as it happens--that this is better for us than what flows from our taps, according to environmental think tank the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).

For a fraction of that sum, everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said this week.

Members of the United Nations have agreed to halve the proportion of people who lack reliable and lasting access to safe drinking water by the year 2015. To meet this goal, they would have to double the $15 billion spent every year on water supply and sanitation.

"While this amount may seem large, it pales in comparison to the estimated $100 billion spent each year on bottled water," said EPI researcher Emily Arnold.

"There is no question that clean, affordable drinking water is essential to the health of our global community," Arnold said. "But bottled water is not the answer in the developed world, nor does it solve problems for the 1.1 billion people who lack a secure water supply. Improving and expanding existing water treatment and sanitation systems is more likely to provide safe and sustainable sources of water over the long term."

Worldwide, bottled water consumption surged to 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from 98 billion liters in 1999, EPI said in a written analysis citing industry data.By one view, the consequences for the planet and for consumers' purses are horrifying."Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing--producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy," said Arnold. "Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more."

At up to $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline in the United States.

Jen and I attended an auction of a bottled water facility and they took tap water, did reverse osmosis and carbon block filtering, UV Light sterilization and that was their "Mountain Pure Spring Water". Maybe some capitalist might want to develop a brand where 15¢ per bottle was used to promote clean 3rd world water...