Tap water is making a comeback
 

With a day's worth of bottled water -- the recommended 64 ounces -- costing hundreds to thousands of dollars a year depending on the brand, more people are opting to slurp water that comes straight from the sink.

The lousy economy may be accomplishing what environmentalists have been trying to do for years -- wean people off the disposable plastic bottles of water that were sold as stylish, portable, healthier and safer than water from the tap.

Heather Kennedy, 33, an office administrator from Austin, Texas, said she used to drink a lot of bottled water but now tries to drink exclusively tap water.

"I feel that (bottled water) is a rip-off," she said in an e-mail. "It is not a better or healthier product than the water that comes out of my tap. It is absurd to pay so much extra for it."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/06/...ion=cnn_latest

Measured in 700-milliliter bottles of Poland Spring, a daily intake of water would cost $4.41, based on prices at a CVS drugstore in New York. Or $6.36 in 20-ounce bottles of Dasani. By half-liters of Evian, that'll be $6.76, please. Which adds up to thousands a year.

Even a 24-pack of half-liter bottles at Costco Wholesale Corp., a bargain at $6.97, would be consumed by one person in six days. That's more than $400 a year.

But water from the tap? A little less than 0.14 cent for a day's worth of water, based on averages from an American Water Works Association survey -- just about 51 cents a year.

U.S. consumers spent $16.8 billion on bottled water in 2007, according to the trade publication Beverage Digest. That's up 12 percent from the year before -- but it's the slowest growth rate since the early 1990s, said editor John Sicher.

Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the biggest bottler of Coca-Cola Co.'s Dasani, recently cut its outlook for the quarter, saying the weak North American economy is hurting sales of bottled water and soda -- especially the 20-ounce single serving sizes consumers had been buying at gas stations.

"They're not walking in and spending a dollar plus for a 20-ounce bottle of water," said beverage analyst William Pecoriello at Morgan Stanley. Flavored and "enhanced" waters like vitamin drinks are also eating into plain bottled water's market share.

Pecoriello said Americans' concern about the environment was also a factor, driven by campaigns against the use of oil in making and transporting the bottles, the waste they create and the notion of paying for what is essentially free.

The Tappening Project, which promotes tap water in the U.S. as clean, safe and more eco-friendly than bottled water, launched a new ad campaign in May. The company has also sold more than 200,000 reusable hard plastic and stainless steel bottles since last November.

Linda Schiffman, 56, a recent retiree from Lexington, Mass., bought two metal bottles at $14.50 each for herself and her daughter from Corporate Accountability, a consumer advocate group, after she swore off buying cases of bottled water from Costco.

Dad 33 is SO happy every time he sees a story like this. He's been bitching about the whole bottled water concept for years.

I have a Brita at home & a water cooler at work, so the only time I ever drink bottled water is if I'm on the road or at a street fair or something.

No tap water for me.

As for water bottles, I drink a gallon of water a day so bottled waters would be costly and inconvenient for me.

I buy 7 gallons of Deer Park every week (the gallons and not the bottles) and fill my reusable 1/2 gallon water jug with it. I fill this jug about twice a day.

Water is my only beverage and I love it. Plus, I exercise a lot so it is a big part of my life. :)

I use a filter. It's cheap. No way am I drinking this city's water. I think it comes right from the canal to my loft.

We are all tap water, all the time (of course, our local tap water is suitable for drinking, I realize there are parts of the country this isn't true). If we buy bottles, it's only if we're out of the house and it's the only option or if we're camping or something. And then we refill the bottles at home with tap water to take in the car or outside, etc. I don't trust that most bottled water isn't mainly just tap water anyway, and I don't trust water that just sits for a long period of time.

just don't drink the water from tap in DC unless you want to get sick!

The water that comes out of my tap is Dasani so...yeah. (The city is a local supplier).

I drink DC tap water from time to time if nothing else is available.

and you are still alive...maaaaan!

lol i come from strong mandinka stock

**walking away from that one...HAHAHAhaaaa!!!**

i have the brita pitcher at home, and i'm thinking about getting one of those things you put on the tap to filter the water as it comes out. it's summer time and i'm always refilling a travel bottle and it gets messy.

I've been trying to convince TPTB to put a water cooler here at work! The tap water here is the best by far so consuming it is no problem.

With all the $$$ I'm spending on everything else, I really don't need to be paying extra whenever I buy cases of water. The beverage deposit fees added to the receipt whenever you buy bottles meeting the criteria as an incentive to get us to take our bottles and cans to the recycling centers.

The 5 cents a bottle is good incentive, but those centers are so spread out that I usually end up spending the money I make on gas, anyway.

That's kind of an interesting issue really, the environmental cost of not recycling vs. the costs related to recycling, maybe more so because you are in Hawaii. Do they ship the crap to the mainland to be recycled or do you have that kind of manufacturing and recycling there. (I apologize for my dumbness on this point.)

Iowa has had the deposit for ages (as far as I can remember). The nice thing is quite a few stores will take back the cans/bottles here. Almost all grocery stores, Target, Wal-Mart, plus a few standalone redemption centers will take them. We have two big garbage bins we toss the aluminum/plastic into and take them in every few months or so. We can sometimes end up with $15-20 refund.

I grew up drinking well water, so that's what I really prefer. Our tap water is pretty good, though. We have a Brita, but that took up too much room in the refrigerator. I wouldn't be opposed to one that attaches to the tap, though, especially if we move out to the country.

My dentist informed me that I should start drinking tap water again because he discovered two pinhead sized cavities in my back teeth.

http://www.ada.org/prof/resources/topics/bottledh2o.asp

My city was apparently one of the first to have fluoride in its tap water. I drink the tap water (sometimes with a filter) and I've lived to tell about it.

I know of one in Oahu (up the hill from my house, actually) and a new on one the Big Island, but unfortunately I don't know too much about them, so I'm just as clueless!

I also forgot to add that a lot of elementary schools have recycling drives where people can take in their recyclables to the schools and the kids get to keep the money. Ideally I'd like to get my money back, but sometimes it's just easier to help the kids and the environment at the same time!

I guess for some of us, tap water never really went out of style. :)

Growing up where I did, where the water supply was fluoridated, it was cool to drink tap water. Now, I only drink bottled water out of convenience, like if I'm traveling, or I'm headed to the gym. I have a Brita pitcher at home, so that helps. :)

If you have the ability to actually recycle out there back to the product stage then it totally makes sense no matter who is getting the money, but at the point you're shipping the recyclables to California on a diesel engine ship, maybe it really makes more sense to make a new reef of recycled Fiji bottles and Spam cans, JK.

I’ve always been a tap water person. I recently gave up drinking cokes and its summer time in Houston so my tap water intake has gone way up.

I know that fuel crisis has hit everyone. Some harder then others but I think a positive to come out of it is that people have re-evaluated their consumer disposable product lifestyle.

I love the tap water in my city and always have. When I travel, I can't stand to drink the water, it doesn't have the same chemicals as the water back home.

I hate to think what all I'm ingesting, but I like the taste!

Kevlar, I'm in Houston too, I think the water tastes wonderful!!!

Flavored water is typically the only type of bottled water that I buy anymore unless I'm dying of thirst. I drink a LOT of water in a day. My company was either trying to promote being eco-friendly or being healthy when it gave us 20 ounce water bottles earlier this year. I keep a Brita pitcher in the fridge at home.

When I lived in a small town, I drank tap water all the time. We had our own well.
I don't know if you know anything about Springfield water, but it's notoriously bad. When I had mono, I couldn't even drink it, and it was that or nothing! The chlorine levels in the water eat holes in my mouth, just like when I have too much citrus. I DON'T need to be in pain from water!

Ranting aside, I get cheap bottled water, refill the bottles (we have a britta filter) and wash them until they're icky.

man, tap water has always been the jam!

i can't say ive had the opportunity to drink other state's water, and actually remember it. but i know in NC (and some other states ive been to, i wanna say PA?) the water has a smell. its not like NYC water but it has a smell.

ETA: yes, it was FL! their water smelled man. even when i was in the shower.

I agree about well water though... it actually tastes good.

I drink the tap water here. When it's refrigerated I can't even tell the difference between tap and bottled. But when I was in college in Calif. a lot of the students had water coolers in our rooms because the water down there has so much chlorine in it that you can even smell it!

I am really lucky to have my own well. I think the water tastes better than I've ever had. The house where I grew up however, it is worse than horrible. True story...Hubbie took a drink from the tap and actually spit it out. I forgot to warn him.

Water from the sink? Yuck. I wouldn't even give my cat tap water. I still would rather drink bottled water. Take a glass and fill it with tap water and look at all the particles floating around in it. Bottled water is so clear.

We have filtered water from our fridge and a Britta pitcher, so that works for us. I will buy bottled water when I'm on road trips, but I bought hubby a cool aluminum refillable bottle with a bunch of camping stuff, so I think we'll use that more. :-)

again, i ask. what the HELL kinda water comes out yall faucet???

and what did yall drink before the whole bottled water/filtered water phase?

i really think its advertising at its finest.

My faucet water isn't nasty tasting. Afterall, I cook with it, rinse my mouth with it, wash my face with it, shower with it, yada yada. I just don't drink it in my gallon a day routine. I assume it also isn't the most contaminated thing in the world.

Before the bottled water/filtered water phase, not sure when it began, my family was putting tap water in old milk gallon containers and thermoses(or whatever). People made do with what they had. :)

The filtered water/bottled water emphasis is about convenience and also marketing. All sorts of inventions may not be a matter of life or death but are great now that we have it.

I actually like the chlorine taste in tap water. It tastes so fresh so clean!

which leads me to my next question: how far do you "tap water--yuck!" people take it? do you boil your bathwater? do you cook with it? what do you fill your icetrays with? and what do you wash your hair with?

i just wonder, if you wouldnt drink it, why would you cook/bathe with it? and trust me, there are worse things you could be eating/drinking. you know whats in a bottle of Coke?

With the exception of when it was contaminated (which was not fun), it was OK for cooking, cleaning and bathing. As a kid, I drank LOTS of Kool-aid-it masked the flavor. We would sip it out of the hose only when we were desperate when we were outside playing. I had to develop a water drinking habit as an adult.

I was raised on well water and it ruined me for anything else. I can drink tap water in some places, but not the vast majority. I use a Brita pitcher and I typically use that water in my cooking as well (unless I need a lot of water and then I'll give in and use tap). I actually do use tap water to brush my teeth and rinse afterwards although sometimes the rinsing grosses me out.

Re: NC water smelling, this is more pronounced in eastern NC/near the coast.

I don't know. But it turns white if you leave it in the glass (unless you use a filter, which I always do, even for ice cubes)

:)

As a "tap-water--yuck!" person, I'd say:

No, I don't boil my bathwater.
No, I don't use tap water to cook with.
I fill my icetrays with bottled water.
I wash my hair with tap water.

Basically, if it goes IN my body it's going to be bottled water. ON my body...tap.

Sure, there are worse things I could be eating or drinking but it's just one of my "things."

My mother started buying bottled water from Sparkletts right after the big Los Angeles earthquake of 1971. The tap water was unsafe. It's part of Southern California culture and "earthquake preparedness" to have several gallons of bottled water available at all times. We just started drinking the bottled water on a regular basis and ever since then (I was 5) I can't stand the taste of most tap waters. Where I live now, the tap water is disgusting. I buy the 3-gallon bottles that the company picks up when empty, sterilizes and uses again.

ETA: My mother can only drink distilled water (minerals + only one kidney) so she doesn't have a choice. She has to buy bottled water.

I'm never without my Poland Spring bottle - which I've been refilling from the tap since last August. :)