This month we're highlighting the need for water conservation, so, I've been delving into many different water related facts. I've stumbled upon (not using stumble-upon, BTW) the HUGE use of bottled water in the USA. Apparently, America opens up one thousand (1000!) bottles of water every second. That adds up to a tune of 30 billion (with a B!) bottles of water used every year in just the Unites States alone.
There are more stats, but I won't bore you. The basic topic I propose to you today, in a world where water is so scarce, is why do we drink so much bottled water? At an enormous increase in cost to us, we have decided that bottled water is something that we need to buy. It is a necessity to us.
BUT WHY?
Is it the taste?
Well, let's go back to the idea of a franchise. You can eat a cheeseburger at a Wendy's in downtown Minneapolis and it will taste like the cheeseburger you can get at a Wendy's in Anchorage. This is because these industries put so much effort (read *Spend loads of money*) in getting a product to look, smell, and taste the same everywhere!
The same can be said for the water industry. A bottle of Dasani is filtered (tap water) with a special blend of minerals that will make every other bottle of Dasani taste like every other bottle of Dasani. They put efforts (*loads of money*) into creating that taste; claim that it's a feature of their water, that Dasani's water is somehow better because of its taste.
Here's a video of a guy who, after drinking so much types and brands of bottled water, has, in fact, become a true bottled water connoisseur.
Four out of six is pretty good. But still, would the average bottled water drinker be able to tell the difference?
Blind taste tests prove that there is no discernible difference in taste between tap water and commercially bottled water.
The dude over at Subliminal Science made a little video where he tested this theory on his teenage kids. And, I understand, while it isn't the most clinically scientific study, it can show some of the basics behind the studies.
Pretty interesting, right? Tap water wins out over Dasani & Fiji waters to the average drinker.
So WHY?
Is it the fear of the dirty dirty tap?
There have been many many dollars put into advertising to perpetuate the idea of tap water as unclean. According to the American Water Works Association, 35% of people who drink bottled water are doing so just because they think it's cleaner and safer than tap water.
If we look at this video (made by Annie Leonard of "The Story of Stuff" fame), we can get a large picture of what bottled water companies are doing in marketing.
Pretty neat video, right? It helps to put the entire process into context. With all of the negatives on drinking bottled water (Plastic Bottles Used, Money Wasted, Not as Tasty) we have to ask ourselves the ultimate question:
WATER BOTTLES. WHY?
We know that we are using enormous quantities of creating power to make these plastic bottles. And they DONT DEGRADE!
We are spending up to 1000 times what we should normally be spending on tap water. (If you were to drink your eight recommended glasses a day of tap water, you'd end up paying only 49 cents for the YEAR!)
We are being told that the bottled water is cleaner, healthier, and tastier than tap water. Tests have proven that this is not the case.
And this isn't even the worst part. Water is so precious and we're are spending (*wasting*) so much money on this product for no good reason. We have clean, tasty, and practically free water readily available right in our houses and we are NOT DRINKING IT!
Put this into comparison to some parts of the world where people must walk miles to get dirty and diseased water because this is all they can find. I found a quote from P.H. Gleick that just says it all:
We are better than the wasting we are doing.
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