www.NaturesOwnWater.Com Your Own Fountain of Youth
Bottled water is one of the fastest-growing beverages on the market. In 1992, consumption of bottled water surpassed that of tea, wine, liquor, powdered drinks, and juice. In 1993, 2,257.7 million gallons of bottled water were sold in the United States, according to Lisa Prats, vice president of the International Bottled Water Association, the trade association of the bottled water industry. Consumers of bottled water cite taste as their primary reason for buying bottled water, but other reasons are safety and concerns about chemicals in tap water, says Prats. The question is, is bottled water worth the difference in cost, at an average cost of 700 times more than plain tap water?
Bottled water was 10 times more expensive than tap water and they should just drink that instead. Of course I went on with “how bad it is for the environment” and “it is just someone else’s tap water” and “you know it is really 5 times more expensive than tap water”. Then my son stopped me. He said “I thought you said it was 10 times more expensive”? Upset that he ruined my rampage I said, well does it really matter do you really want to know? and he said “yes”. So here it is. 12 liters of bottled water at costco is $6.98 (24 count of .5 liter bottles). So that is about 3.1 gallons. I don’t want to do hard math so lets say that 3 gallons of bottled water costs $3 (or 1 dollar a gallon). I checked the Fairfax County Water Authority Website and I pay $1.55 for 1,000 gallons of tap water. Wait, that can’t be right $1.55 for a thousand gallons? I need to check my bill. I walk downstairs and confirm that we used 12,000 gallons of water last quarter and were charged $1.50 per 1,000 gallons (I guess water has gone up recently).That is 645 times more expensive for the cheapest bottled around. So let’s round down it is 50,000% cheaper to drink tap water in Fairfax county than to buy it bottled at Costco. I could not believe it. I was (and still am) stunned. Is the convenience of disposal bottle worth a 50,000% markup? Not for me it is not. It gets worse, at work it is $1.10 a half liter to get water out of the vending machine (there is a water fountain right beside it that is free, but let’s assume you are paying for that). That comes to over $7 a gallon of bottled water (it is cold after all). Which is closer to a 200,000% markup.
