Bottled Water is a Big Waste

God created Man in His image. He intended our brains to switch off when we're asleep, but not when it comes to bottled water.

If we lived in a part of the world that doesn't have access to safe water, that would be one thing, but most of my readers have safe water at the turn of a tap. Consider the expense we incur for the disposable convenience of a bottle of water:

• Meeting your recommended daily water intake would cost $1,400 if it were all bottled water. It costs 59 cents if you take it from the faucet. Who are you giving your money to?
  
• Bottling water is ironically, water-intensive. It takes 3 liters of water to bottle a single liter of water.
  
• To deliver our bottled water requires a weekly convoy of 37,800 18-wheelers and that rate is growing.
  
• Between the production and transport of the bottle, a quarter of a bottle of oil is consumed.
  
• Americans spent more on bottled water last year than iPods or movie tickets: $15 billion.
  
• An 18-wheeler cannot be filled with bottled water. It's too heavy. A shipment of bottled water requires the truck to leave empty space.
  
• On average, we pay far more for bottled water than gasoline, although you can find it for about the same cost as milk.
  

From an article posted on fastcompany.com:

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

God gave you a brain. Are you using it proudly?