Bottle Me Up
So I received my almost daily Bacn from staples this morning and to my surprise, there was something that was of interest to me. Most of the offers in this e-mail are geared towards business and I am typically not enticed by them (envelopes, paper, etc.). I scanned through the e-mail and saw that they had a 24-pack of Poland Spring Water. This may not intrigue everyone, but it took me by surprise. Why would a business/technology store carry bottled water? Sure, people drink water at work as well as much as anywhere, but I found it amusing that they were advertising this misfit product.
Bottled water is interesting. So much so, that I decided to dig a little deeper and see what is really going on with bottled water in America. I quickly found that our Natural Resources Defense Council has already done a four year study on bottled water. You can find the complete documentation of it on their website. This study is a in depth look at whether bottled water is better for you then tap water. It seems it can sometimes be worse for you and isn’t really better for you.
According to our favorite site wikipedia, “In 2006, the US bottled water sales surpassed 8 Billion gallons of water.” Wow! I cannot even fathom how much that is. Bottled water is something many of us (at least in the U.S.) can live without. Is it not amazing that people would spend so much money on something they already have at their finger tips for virtually free?
I grab a bottle of water almost every morning out of my refrigerator and take it to work to drink. I usually fill it up a time or two at work and then at the days end, I throw away the bottle. My initial response as to why I perform this behavior would be for the sake of convince, but I have to goto the store, lug home a crate of water, and then put 5 or so in the refrigerator every week. Doesn’t just filling up the same water bottle everyday from the tap seem a lot easier? My next thought it I do it because the water is better for me. As the NRDC has already pointed out bottled water can actually be more harmful in some cases. Plus, I fill up the bottle after its original contents have been emptied with tap water.
I am not sure why Americans have become so accustomed to grabbing that plastic bottle of water and paying that $4 to $5 for a case. I do not have exact figures, but I know that the water bottle market is now over a 10 million dollar industry. With everyone becoming concerned with being green I thought I might do my part. This year is the year to start tapping the tap again.
