So I just rummaged around my office’s recycle bin to find any type of water bottle for this blog, and surfaced with three different brands of water.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t too surprised, but have to wonder:  Why would my colleagues be drinking bottled water, when Round Rock has excellent tap water?
Probably for the same reason many people do…
- It’s easy to buy
- It’s seems cleaner
- It’s convenient to carry around a closable bottle
- It’s healthy
- It doesn’t taste or smell funny
- … just guessing here, but I’m sure there are more reasons!
I really just want to address one part of this long-time debate between bottled water versus tap water today, and that’s related to the cost of both of these products.  The more I got into this topic, I think this will turn into a multi-part series on the bottle vs. tap debate!
So looking at purely the purchase price, the cost, what are you getting for the $1.09 that you spend to buy the bottled water? All three of the bottled waters in my recycle bin are 500mL, which is the same as 16.9 fluid ounces, or approximately 13% of one gallon of water…plus a plastic bottle. That’s a little pricey for 13% of 1-gallon and a plastic bottle.
When the City (or your water provider) delivers water underground through water mains, directly to your house and out all of your faucets, you are paying $2.42 for 1,000 gallons of water!!!! That’s $0.002 per gallon of clean water delivered to your property, every day. Cheap!!
Let’s compare this to other things:
- $2.05 for 1 gallon of gasoline (maybe not for long!)
- $16.99 for the cheapest ink cartridge for my printer
- $14.99 for a 12-pack of Shiner, which is about a gallon of beer
- $62.00 for 1.7 oz of Calvin Klein Eternity perfume, which is way less than a gallon!
So you can see where I’m going here. Tap water is an immense valve, priced by the thousands of gallons! We haven’t even talked about the safety of it and the fact that it doesn’t create the solid waste challenge that the bottled drink industry has.
I encourage you to drink tap water, carry your own bottles, mugs, cups, and refill them! To find out more about the  bottled vs. tap debate, go to drinktap.org, which is an educational website run by the American Water Works Association, the largest nonprofit, scientific and educational association dedicated to managing and treating water, the world’s most important resource.
