Message in a Bottle

First, we should note that it recently came to our attention that the previous 3 or 4 blog posts have had a subtle sort of "human anatomy" theme running through them. We agree, and apologize for any confusion/suspicion that may have caused. Said theme was completely unintended, though it hindsight it strikes us as rather humorous.

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An article has been posted on the bulletin board in the law school library for several weeks.
We've never stopped to read it, but the title is always an eye catcher.

"Bottled Water: Worse than Gasoline?"

Today we finally decided to go read the article, only to find that it had been removed from the board. We haven't found it on Google yet.

But we did find this article, which discusses in detail the bottled water industry. Personally, we have never been a fan of bottled water. For one, we don't like the way it tastes, especially compared to the well water we grew up drinking. For two, we've NEVER been able to justify paying money for something we could easily get for free (and don't like the taste of). Coke or Guinness doesn't come out of the tap in our sink, but water does. Judging by this article, there are a lot of other people who share our sentiments.

Consider (excerpted from the article):

"Thirty years ago, bottled water barely existed as a business in the United States. Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets--$15 billion. It will be $16 billion this year."
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"A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health." -----------------

"We buy bottled water because we think it's healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn't healthier, or safer, than tap water. Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world's $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four--the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico--that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe."
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"[I]n Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji."
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"You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35--17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren't paying attention."
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"In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000."
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"Today, for all the apparent variety on the shelf, bottled water is dominated in the United States and worldwide by four huge companies. Pepsi (NYSE:PEP) has the nation's number-one-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with 13% of the market. Coke's (NYSE:KO) Dasani is number two, with 11% of the market. Both are simply purified municipal water--so 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience. Evian is owned by Danone, the French food giant, and distributed in the United States by Coke."
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"Bottled water is not a sin. But it is a choice."

We'd suggest you buy a Nalgene bottle of some sort and start using that instead. It's a lot cheaper.

Of course, we're biased, considering Columbia has been ranked as having one of the top 3 best tasting municipal water in the country.
Then again, we don't even drink Columbia's municipal water - ours comes straight from the ground.