The Bottled Water Con: "20 to 40 percent comes from public drinking reservoirs"

[Better Believe It]

November 18, 2008

The Bottled Water Con
Buying the Message on the Bottle
By WENDY WILLIAMS

I remember when the name of the game at my gym was pump ’n’ swig. Weight lifters and treadmill sloggers routinely carried with their sweat towels expensive water in plastic bottles. Drinking commercial water was the cool thing. In 2006, Americans bought 32.6 billion single-serving bottles of water, and another 34.6 billion larger bottles.

The surprising truth is that an estimated 25 to 40 percent of bottled water comes from public drinking reservoirs. Pepsico’s Aquafina label shows high-peaked mountains, but the water is from municipal systems, including that of Ayer, Mass., a town next to a military base and a short drive from Boston. Coca-Cola’s brand, Dasani, also uses municipal systems.

It’s all in the marketing.

“Bottled water sales have gone flat for the first time in 30 years, at both Coke and Pepsi,” says ad executive Erik Yaverbaum, founder of Tappening, which encourages people to drink tap water. “I think people are realizing they are wasting money buying water that’s the same as what comes from their tap.”

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/williams11182008.html

[Taverner]

1. Bottled water is no better than tap. If you want clean water, get reverse osmosis

You could buy it for 100-200 dollars, and never need to buy a bottle again

[no limit]

2. Who wouldn't want to pay for water with a blend of toxic plastic chemicals in it?

[bdamomma]

3. just another way of them scamming us all.

it's all about consuming, and not about the citizens.

[DesertFlower]

4. i have a reverse osmosis system.

i carry my water from home with me.

[Better Believe It]

5. What is the "reverse osmosis system"?

[DesertFlower]

6. the link i'm giving is hard to undersand

http://science.howstuffworks.com/reverse-osmosis.htm

basically it's attached to your sink and takes the impurities out of the water.

[soothsayer]

8. It won't remove that stuff they replaced chlorine with. The stuff that will kill your fish.

[DesertFlower]

11. i don't know what that is.

i'm also fortunate inasmuch as i have my own well so nothing is added to the water.

[ContinentalOp]

7. Not a total scam though...

a lot of them are at least reverse osmosis filtered. Which is better than nothing.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Only 20-40%?

I'd figure it'd be a lot more.

[soothsayer]

10. Some spring water is excellent. Some reservoir water is excellent (like NYC water that

comes from upstate NY). Washington DC water, however, ain't that great.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. There's a great scene in a new movie "Slumdog Millionaire"

which is about an orphan growing up in India.

In one segment, he and his brother get a job in a large restaurant, and we see a restaurant employee filling plastic bottles with tap water and gluing labels and seals onto them.

[ladjf]

13. According to the labeling on many bottled waters is the statement

that it was "purified by reverse osmosis". If that is true, the water should be free for contamination.