I’ve been on my soapbox about this for a long time now. People want to gripe about the cost of a gallon of gasoline, which has to be drilled, refined, shipped, heavily taxed, etc. However, nobody thinks twice about paying $5 per gallon for bottled tap water.
1 liter ~ .25 gallons
$1.19/liter x 4 = $4.76/gallon (approximately)
Just doesn’t make sense does it? Oh – you think that your
In 1999 the NRDC tested more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of water. (This is the most recent major report on bottled water safety.) While noting that most bottled water is safe, the organization found that at least one sample of a third of the brands contained bacterial or chemical contaminants, including carcinogens, in levels exceeding state or industry standards. Since the report, no major regulatory changes have been made and bottlers haven’t drastically altered their procedures, so the risk is likely still there.
Bottlers don’t have to let consumers know if their product becomes contaminated, but sometimes they pull their products from stores. In fact, between 1990 and 2007, this happened about 100 times, says Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. Among the reasons for recall: contamination with mold, benzene, coliform, microbes, even crickets.
If you like bottled water and want to continue to pay for Coca-Cola’s massive marketing campaigns for your Dasani, then that’s great. Just don’t gripe about the cost of gasoline around me. As a matter of fact, unless you want to drill, refine, and produce you own gasoline then shut or walk – and use that overpriced bottle of Dasani to quench your thirst.