Tap Water is Safe Clean and Green
Is the sale of bottled water one of the great triumphs of marketing? When it turns out that Aquafina sells filtered tap water, what is the value of buying bottled water, as opposed to tap water, or filtering your own water?
Buying many high end bottled water brands appeals to snob value - the idea that we should pamper ourselves and that our tastes are more refined than mass tastes. To some extent, that applies to any bottled water. Modern marketing has a way of making everyone feel they are the best sheep in the flock.
"Kick the Bottled Water Habit" is an extract from Tom Standage's new book, A History of the World in Seven Glasses.
Standage is a little too kind to public water supply. It isn't always safe, and it often has a smell or taste, associated with the source, or with the level of chlorination, or with sitting in old cast iron and lead pipes before it reaches the tap. Seattle has good water. Winnipeg used to have good water, drawn from the bottom of a Canadian Shield lake, but algae growth in the reservoirs, aging aqueduct and water main infrastructure and chlorination means that in July, August and September, tap water smells like the contents of a leaf filled swimming pool. But you can get rid of that by running it, letting it stand and pouring it into a container for drinking water, or by filtering it. So go figure what the convenience of buying bottled water is worth.
That's a nice thing to be worried about in the first world. What about the third world? Leaving aside the anti-corporate rhetoric, clean safe water is huge issue. I want to see that movie Thirst some time.
