What they don’t tell you about bottled water

By Dr Kizito Lubano

Bottled water is healthy, or so marketers would have us believe. But here is what they do not tell you: It’s expensive, wasteful and contrary to popular belief, not any healthier for you than tap water. Yes, that’s bottled water for you.

In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact is not stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with the market expanding at the startling annual rate of seven per cent.

Bottled water is big business. But in terms of sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It’s costly, wasteful and distracts the brass ring of public health: the construction and maintenance of safe municipal water systems.

Want some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit? We have rounded up seven to get you started.

Until recently, one litre of bottled water was more expensive than one litre of super petrol in Kenya.

Elsewhere, take for instance two of the world’s leading bottled water brands, they sell the resource in 20-ounce sizes and it can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks — and at the same price. Assuming that you can find a one dollar machine, that works out to five cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Interestingly, most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon.

Now consider another widely sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station.

In the US, the average price per gallon is hovering around Sh250. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at a fraction over two cents an ounce.

And that’s why there’s no shortage of companies that want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts big oil to shame.

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