Theres a HUGE markup on ALOT of things.

Thats how capitalism works.

Except those other things aren't free and readily available.

Yeah, you seem to think that Convenience is taking the water already in your tap, putting it in a 10 cent bottle and then being charged up to 2.50 for it. That isn't convenience, it's trickery, marketing, and bad economy.

If bottled water was $0.50 per bottle and made of biodegradable plastic, things would be different.

IT ISN'T THE WATER IN MY TAP.

:/

It's the water that doesn't contain assloads of additives.

THAT ASIDE, It's hella convenient. :/

Doesn't contain assloads of additives? COMPLETELY untrue. You won't find a single source that defends that at all. I don't know of any water bottling companies that don't use some kind of additive or process that causes additives. Not to mention, the plastic of a bottle is constantly being dissolved into the water: at a much faster rate than in any soft drinks. Not to mention, the burning and recycling of the plastic bottles causes rain water contamination.

Exactly as Emon said: If it cost 50 cents a bottle and was actually recyclable, we'd be in a different discussion (But the fact that it's taking away from public water quality, and also contributes to thousands of gallons of burned fuel a day still bothers me), but we're not. We're talking about reused water in horrible containers with paper labels and extremely excessive and unchecked markup.

A dollar really isn't that much money.

And I could seriously care about plastic that won't bio-degrade.

Actually, that's a complete load of bullocks.

Not bullocks. I'm not talking about the "poison" argument. I'm talking about the fact that their bottles constantly dissolve into the water, as proven by an experiment done in my 10th grade biology class. It's not a harmful amount by any means, but it's certainly not pure as Rob would like to believe.

I'm skeptical...that would mean the plastic they use is water soluble, and thus biodegradable.

If you could do it in 10th grade biology, then there is most certainly literature on the subject.

Yeah...the more I think about that, the less sense it makes. It's possible you were actually detecting plasticizers that had leeched from the plastic into the water, but I'm pretty sure they use plasticizer free plastics for health reasons. If not, anything you detected was a trace amount.

You said you used litmus paper to detect a change in pH? Plasticizers are somewhat acidic, so it makes sense that you would be detecting the presence of those.

It sounds like your 10th grade biology teacher was a bimbo.

Yup, plastic sure is an impure material.

Must be why it has several thousand applications in modern medicine. :downs:

Rob, plastics are very diverse. The ones they use in medicine and chemistry are plasticizer free most of the time. I'm unsure if they use plasticizer free materials for bottling beverages. I would think so, but it's the only thing I can think of that makes Kirby's experience possible.

Okay, after a little research, it seems what you detected in the water was nothing more than acetaldehyde. It's the stuff that gives some bottled water its "plastic" taste.

In summation, your 10th grade biology teacher was a dolt.

ok. heres the thing. my tap water tastes DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is that clear yet? i live near los angelas, all the tap water around here is pumped full of fluoride and it tastes horrible! bottles water (or at least the bottled water that i drink) tastes great... or rather doesn't taste much at all. if you buy it in bulk its not that expensive. yeah its wonderful to think about all the cheaper and better quality natural resources (public water) we would have if only the bottled water industry wasn't suppressing the market! but hey, lets be realistic for a moment: our government is full of largely incompetent boobs, on both sides, and a reduction in bottled water would never realistically result in cheaper and better quality public water! it wouldn't happen! public officials would find something far more important to spend the money on... like 400 dollar bottles of wine.

That is funny. And sad. Kind of. Because we do in finland.

Stop whining and drink up, boy!

The fluoride gives you pretty teeth.

Why the hell would you buy mass small bottles, rather than keep a supply of 5 gallon jugs?

Exactly. If your tap water is gross or unhealthy, but it by the gallon, which is actually reasonably priced.

Sam's club cases are really cheap. :/

I take them to work and refill them there alot, the water fountain there has a filter.

its like 30cents a gallon for filtered water in local grocery markets. You just bring a 5 gallon jug and fill it up.

They don't have that here. :/

And I wouldn't be able to do that. I can't take a cantene to work anymore.

Only clear bottled water.

Thats lame. Do you have a hippy market? they usually have one>_>

Also, you can get clear nalgenes.

I have no idea what bulk bottled water is per gallon though. But the 5 gallons save a ****load of recycling/garbage trouble.

It can't be a bottle I bring that ven be refilled.

IT MIGHT BE FILLED WITH NITRO!

What the hell? do you work for fbi or something?

No I work at the airport. :/

How near is near? Could be Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Sherman Oaks, Arcadia...

It depends on the pipe system sometimes. Dirty pipes means water will taste worse than some other areas. I don't think LA has the money to coat the insides of all the pipes with that... hmm forgot but you coat it with something that will give you "soft" water in your house.

I'm sure Echo Park's and Griffith Park's fountains won't kill you (unless you drink too much of it to the point it disrupts your electrolyte balance in your body and if it DOES have an over concentrated amount of fluoride then yes you can suffer from bone cancer, only if you drink too much of it.)

My saying on tap/bottled water is that: Tap water from a public fountain is just a place to make a quick pit stop to quench/hydrate yourself quickly when you really need it. Bottled water is just a convenient storage for water and would prove to be very useful in a time of an emergency.

this doesnt make any sense. how is the cashier or the cash register supposed to know before they ring up the items whether the person is paying with food stamps or not? most places you have to specify "tax exempt" (ie school supplies a teacher buys for his/her class) before you start ringing them out. unless the tax is added or subtracted after the form of payment has been determined...but if its added you give someone the wrong total, same if its subtracted. gah stupid other states.

Depends on the store. Smaller stores need to know before the sale (like you said, for school supplies or whatnot), but most grocery stores have it set up that if the person pays by food stamps, the tax is taken off of each eligible item when the total button is pushed, displaying the correct total. Customer pays for what is eligible with their food stamps card, and makes up the difference on other items with a debit/credit card or cash. Needs to be kept track of by inventory people, but that's just part of running the store.

Hardly, that was Dasani and they never claimed to be selling spring water, it was from Sidcup round the corner from my hometown. They were shut down because a chemical was found in Dasani that made it potentially carcinogenic, ironically this was due to the filtering process, the unfiltered Sidcup tap water was fine.
It also didn't help that they probably had an American come up with the advertising slogan which referred to Dasani as "bottled spunk". D:

Fair enough.

IT WAS YEARS AGO IN A TABLOID!

Also, are you sure it was the carcinogen? The dye that they use in IRN-BRU to make it orange is potentially carcinogenic, but I don't see them shutting Barr down. :/

Mind you I suppose that if they did, 5 million scottish people would march on westminster.

Grocery stores sell (They might not anymore, due to conflict of interest) 5 cent water in large jugs at the front of the store, usually with the ice. Distilled water if you need it. You can even by 5 gallon drums, too. They'll even cart it all to your car. Price? 5 bucks for 20 gallons. This is a logical and economic price point for bottling tap water.

This is also what water fountains are for. Cheap economical transportation of a vital substance to public places. The reason why water isn't convenient like it is in bottled water is because people are willing to pay for bottled water. Water would be just as convenient if people used some common sense in the situation and NOT agreed to pay more for water than they do for gas. This is a situation where the people are not using their buying power, and are instead taking the price of a product at face value.

I'm pretty much done with this thread. Those of you who keep spouting the same stupid remark about convenience are absolutely ignoring all of the reasons why convenience is a poor answer. If you want to start talking about the benefits and negatives of the system, ok. But just repeating "convenience" doesn't make it a viable, logical, or even legal industry. If American government wasn't run by special interest groups (On BOTH sides of the ring. That wasn't an attack, wookie) we would see the water companies smashed. But instead, consumer ignorance, soft drink lobbyists, and complacency wins over. There are certain instances when the government is supposed to take charge of a monopoly to insure quality in a service, and minimize spending of the people to secure economy. Water is one of the CORNERSTONES of this concept.

Oh, but convenience, lol.

That's because they don't have the same definition of convenience as you do and not matter what you say, they aren't going to change their minds. In fact, they have the right to call buying a bottle of water convenient as much as you to say its not.

I never said it wasn't convenient. I said convenience doesn't negate the fact that it goes against the model of market we've established in our country, it's being a bad consumer, and it thwarts the concept of a government provided service in a free market.

So taxis should be banned in place of busses?

I never said that bottled water should be banned. That's bad market. I'm saying that consumers paying for water they've already paid for with tax money is bad economy. Paying for water that is marked up thousands of times higher than it should be is bad consumers. Buying water made with low quality plastic is bad environment.

That is, there shouldn't be a company standing at the back of the bus charging $20.00 to sit down. Sitting is convenient.

Buying water you already bought for .02 cents but now for more than gasoline in these wasteful containers when it is readily available for 5 Cents a gallon in reusable jugs with your own hard reusable plastic 50 cent water bottle is just plain retarded, and is hardly "convenient." It's lack of foresight and logic. It's not smart. It's batty. It's a slap in the face to people who don't have a drop of clean water. Stop posting stupid ignorant and 1st world "convenience" bullspe. It's travesty.