Bottled water vs. Tap water

Whether it is from a bottle or the tap, drinking water is vital for our lives to provide healthy hydration. People decide to purchase bottled water for several reasons, including convenience, quality and taste.

In 1977, Perrier introduced the first bottled water to the U.S. Up until then, it was common for us to drink from water fountains that were found all over. Now that has switched, it is not popular and considered normal to drink bottled water and the public water fountain is a thing of the past. Bottled water is getting more popular and is the healthy beverage icon. How did this happen? Well, the bottled water industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that increases every year. In 2012, sales of bottled water increased 6.7%, selling nearly 9.7 billion gallons of water. This converts to $11.8 billion dollars in sales. How did the bottled water industry change us from water that was often offered for free to buying bottled water? Most of it is tied to creative marketing. Think about it, bottled water costs some in the area of 750 to nearly 3,000 times more than tap water. Yet, millions still choose to drink it over tap water even though it has been shown to be the same product.

Manufacturers need a good marketing strategy to get sales started and keep them going. Americans often go along with the flow, even though a myth can be debunked. In order to get the masses to drink bottled water at such an increased price and continue to use it, they have to be convinced that it is the best choice. Water bottle manufacturers have spent millions on getting Americans to spend their hard earned money on water in bottles.

Try to convince us that tap water is bad by misleading ads showing bottled water is better. They use scare tactics ...

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...iendly. Unfortunately we don’t hear the whole story. Many municipalities still don’t want people to recycle the lids because they are made of less pure plastic. The other issue is that many of the water bottles are shipped overseas for recycling. Most water bottles and not recycled into another water bottle. They are put in a process called down-cycling, the plastic from the bottles are actually used for lower quality plastic products. These cheap plastic products usually end up back in the landfill thus getting us nowhere. The parts of the bottles which are not down-cycled are trashed in the landfills in some else’s backyard. Oil is used to manufacture products and also in the transport of the product which also generates pollution. In addition, the water bottle industry is one of the industries that are polluting our water supplies. Not what I call earth friendly.