How much do you Americans spend on water bottles/month?

[tierrlamé]

Here in Sweden we just drink from the sink.

[WindAtMyBack]

I don't know what percentage of American drink bottled water, but it has become very common over the last 20 years or so. My guess is that a small percentage drink it as their only water, but a lot more drink it occasionally.

A lot of it is marketing. The companies selling that water have made people believe there is something wrong with municipal water. In some cities they may be right, but mostly the municipal water is just fine. In some places you can taste the chlorine that they use to treat the water, and some people don't like that. I lived one place where the water tasted really bad sometimes. That wasn't from chlorine, it smelled and tasted like mud.

Bottled water is also convenient if you are away from home. Like at the gym, out hiking, on long road trips, or construction workers who don't have a tap nearby.

Except that one place where it tasted pretty bad, I have always drank tap water.

[tierrlamé]

Taste like mud? Thats crazy, that can't be right. It depends then and it makes sense. I've heard New York tap water is really nice but I don't know

[WindAtMyBack]

This was in a wide flood plain where a lot of salts and minerals accumulate in the low areas. They filter the water for particulates, and treat it for organics. Sometimes I think it just overwhelmed the system. The population was growing fast, and they probably needed a new treatment plant to keep up.

[tierrlamé]

Yeah thats problaby true

[WindAtMyBack]

The Neil deGrasse Tyson video reminds me of another important aspect of this. Desalinization to get drinking water makes me think of someplace like Los Angeles.

LA is vastly overpopulated in a semi-arid location. There is not nearly enough local water to support that population. It is entirely dependent on outside sources of water, not only for drinking, but for everything else including flushing the toilet. Their water comes from hundreds of kilometers away, largely using canals with a high loss due to evaporation in that dry environment.

Someplace like Phoenix is even worse. Much of the American southwest is like this. This is certainly not unique to the US. It's a huge problem in places like Mexico City, and all around the world.

California and Arizona are huge agricultural states, yet they are arid or semi-arid. Large areas of farmland are literally in the middle of the desert. It takes vast amounts of water to grow crops where they really are not supposed to be grown. This is true on the Mexican side of the border also.

Local water literally doesn't exist for much of the US population, especially in the southwest. Los Angeles is on the ocean. That can potentially be turned into drinking water and grey water. But in much of the arid and semi-arid US, that is not possible.

I wrote a white paper on this for an engineering class in the late 70s, when the world population was half what it is now. The problem of supplying enough water for the population was a problem even back then, and expected to get worse. At the time I thought the idea of buying water in bottles was crazy. Who the hell would pay for a bottle of water? But now it's reality.

It's a worldwide problem that will only get worse.

[tierrlamé]

Wow you know a lot about water. The fact that you remember all this from a class in the 70's says a lot. You smart smart huh😂. Gooooood

[WindAtMyBack]

Most of that was not from that late 70s paper. Some of it is common knowledge for people who live in the southwest US. Water is a big political issue there. Human history and civilization revolves around water.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up where Dubai gets it's water. They are in the desert and growing fast. They get about 10-11 cm of rain per year. Most of that evaporates in the high heat. The majority of their water comes from desalinization. They are a new and fast growing modern city, with tons of money to build big desalination plants. If they were not on the gulf, they'd never get by with the growth.

[tierrlamé]

Interesting

[NaultD]

The USA has private businesses cleaning water and tends to be the lowest bidder, getting contracts with only a local monopoly on city water. While there are safety standards, quality is not a concern. So, it really is dependent on your area and who you use. Even gross or smelly water is equally safe to drink and clean with.

Zero pride in what you produce but maximize bottom dollar.

It's also cheaper to globally ship drinking water from a few reliable maintenance sources then maintaining a nation or globally tap water. That's how we have Fiji water.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SC23r3KjtcE

[tierrlamé]

I didn't know that. Good to know.

I grew up watching him lol

[NaultD]

Neil is a bit of an ass in the humanities and arts. But in logical science and space, he's in a league of his own.

[tierrlamé]

Yeah he's good when it comes to science

[midnightmoon05]

Not sure…what I see are many do use stainless steal water bottles to refill.
I also see them buying cases and cases of water bottles.
For us…we don’t buy bottle water…we have the best water in NYC … right out of the faucet…here in Connecticut, we have well water…we boiled our water for drinking.

most European countries are only bottle water especially in Italy and France, Spain, Portugal, Germany.

Switzerland, Sweden, part of France, we were able to refill our water bottles from the street spring water…. delicious coming from the alps.

[tierrlamé]

Yeah I'm in Sweden so I know lol. But yeah it does taste different in different places

[CrabCakes11]

I purchase water from the water man or the coin machines by the super market and fill a few 3 gallon jugs with it for 50 cents a gallon. I take that home and put it in a tank with a tap on my counter and fill reusable water bottle with that when I leave the house

[tierrlamé]

Sounds like a good plan. I'mma remember that for my first house I purchase

[Flatmanlewis]

I think bottled water is a regional thing. When I’ve visited family in Washington State their tap water is beautiful and tastes nice. Where I live the decades of agricultural farming & livestock ranching has left the ground water less than pleasant. Plus, it’s hard water and very mineral intensive. We buy large 5gal bottles of water and use a water dispenser/cooler. We return the bottles regularly, which they clean and refill, and collect new ones. It’s worth it for the taste alone.

[tierrlamé]

Yeah seams like it depends on the area. Makes sense

[IslaTheWitch]

In Germany, also from the sink, and a few times per year, they check the quality... like if anything ever changed :D

[tierrlamé]

Yeah Europe overall is good lol

[exitseven]

I am one of the selected homes that the town uses to check water quality. They drop off a sample bottle and ibfill it up in the kitchen sink and they pick it up the next day. They always send me a copy of the test results and a gift card for 10 bucks at Dunkin Dinuts

[tierrlamé]

@exitseven 😂 damn thats too good, dunkin dinuts be going back giving out donats

[Fireguy17]

pretty close to zero.
I will grab one, one in a while, but it is normally in a reusable bottle.
We have a reverse osmosis system for our fridge so that is where we get that water from, or just a glass out of the faucet.
At the station we have it provided for us, they get a pallet load at a time.
We keep it in all of the apparatus and in coolers ready to go.

[tierrlamé]

Nice

[Fireguy17]

we like it, now we don't have to buy the filters for the fridge all the time.

[tierrlamé]

Yeah thats good

[LaFemmeFatale_1]

In Tbilisi, Georgia - We drink Tap Water as the quality and cleanliness is great.

In China, I buy water, you cannot drink tap water here in Shanghai.

[tierrlamé]

Cool

[katiesmuff]

Many of us in US also drink from the local water. I am one of those, big glass, couple Ice cubes and fill the glass with tap water. I do have several travel bottles for filling with water.

[tierrlamé]

Oh okay I didn't know that.. so does it depend on the state or is it just personal choice?

[katiesmuff]

Personal choice, some aren't bright enough to know much of the bottled water they pay 5 - 10 dollars a case for is nothing more than tap water itself.

[tierrlamé]

alright thats rich

[NathanDavis]

I live in Texas so... you'll never see me drinking any tap water

[tierrlamé]

Yeah is the end cost a lot/month?

[NathanDavis]

"a lot" would be subjective to a few factors

generally speaking, water is not expensive in Texas

[tierrlamé]

Yeah but is it like 10-50 dollars or hundreds?

[NathanDavis]

no idea

[tierrlamé]

alright lol

[NathanDavis]

I just don't keep track of it...

[tierrlamé]

makes sense

[loveslongnails]

I don't buy any bottled water. I have a reverse osmosis filtration system in my home. It cost less than $300 and the water quality is better than bottled water. Plus, there's no excessive plastic waste.

[tierrlamé]

How you get that?

[sheikalana]

I'm not America but we live in the middle east and we can't drink tap water. We buy bottles of water every week. I travel quiet often to other countries and I never drink tap water overseas either.

[tierrlamé]

Alright cool, what country?

[dreamstar72]

We mainly drink tap water.
We do buy bottled water when we go places, so I guess we spend about 10.00 a month.

[tierrlamé]

Alright

[Iron_Man]

There’s been so much money app because they want to find good alkaline water. They want to get a good PH level tapwater from a sink doesn’t have much pH level

[tierrlamé]

oh didn't know that

[Iron_Man]

You have to find a good pH level. Anything below seven is not good. You have to have it as high as possible. I don’t believe any kind of city water is high enough from The water fountain or sink

[tierrlamé]

Alright didn't know that. learn something new every day

[Iron_Man]

You’ll feel better drinking higher, pH levels, alkaline water

[tierrlamé]

i guess i already am

[Iron_Man]

Good

[Iron_Man]

You can actually test the PH levels to verify it

[Iron_Man]

They have home test for that

[tierrlamé]

i guess i need to buy ph sticks for that

[Agape93]

I don't buy any, no need. Sink, rain or stream (boiled and filtered)

[tierrlamé]

Nice

[bolverk]

I'm from the UK, I don't buy plastic water bottles as I have double-insulated stainless bottles/tumblers.

[tierrlamé]

Makes sense

[exitseven]

In the town I live in wehave really good water so I drink out if the sink.

[tierrlamé]

Cool

[jahaims]

It varies based on the person's preferences. Not everyone buys water instead of using the tap. The prices vary based on where you live as well.

[tierrlamé]

Okay makes sense. They always tell visitors to pay for the water tho

[jahaims]

Shit isn't free in America

[tierrlamé]

Yeah they always want money lol

[douride2]

Here I live drink from a glass. The water comes out of a tap.

[tierrlamé]

Nice, same

[Mangospacho]

Exactly $0.00, which is equal to €0.00 and also equal to 0.00 SEK

[tierrlamé]

Smart

[deus_ex_sisyphus]

$73 - $25 delivery fee + 6x ( $8 5-gal bottle)

[tierrlamé]

Thats a lot!

[OtterMan68]

far too much. I have a re-usable water bottle with a built in filter.

[tierrlamé]

Thats cool

[Anonymous]

Probably $50, the tap water here is undrinkable unless filtered and boiled

[tierrlamé]

What state/country?

[Opinion Owner]

UK, it's just chalk here

[tierrlamé]

ok cool

[purplepoppy]

In the UK we use the tap

[tierrlamé]

Cool

[itsclearlynicholas]

Probably a couple bucks 😄

[itsclearlynicholas]

Australian

[tierrlamé]

Thats rich lol

[Anonymous]

What a stupid question. lol

[Anonymous]

Zero.

[tierrlamé]

same

[Opinion Owner]

The biggest issue is that since America is so large with varying water qualities, soil content, mineral content, and water processing facilities, the “taste” of the water can sometimes vary.

For instance the city I grew up in has a very, very high quality water processing plant. It’s sort of semi-famous for how good the water is there.

However, I attended university in another state across the river. About a 30-45 min commute.

I absolutely HATED the water at my university. You could drink it... but it tasted like a rusty metal spoon. If you’ve ever had a Zinc lozenge, you know that metallic taste I’m referring to.

I had to use a water bottle with a built in filter at college just so I could stay hydrated and not gag every time I took a sip of water. People who grew up around there probably didn’t mind the water or notice it’s taste, but it was gross. 🤢

[tierrlamé]

Yeah I get it. I grew up in Gambia and we usually drink from bottled water. Here in Sweden it's all tap water tho.

It's crazy how a town can be semi famous for water😂

[Opinion Owner]

The city actually bottles the water and sells it. And it’s literally just tap water. 😂

[tierrlamé]

Thats a scam😂🤣 shows how many npc there are