Harder to believe than

Nathan Maas

Nathan Maas

People do stupid things. People do outrageous things. People do outstanding things. We are humans, and by default, we have faults. One of our many faults is that we do things without thinking it through.

First, we drink bottled water. To be clear, I am not challenging the age-old tradition of drinking water. So all you pro-water people should wait until I am finished. Water is good. It helps to sustain us and nourish us. Without it, we would die, most likely within a few days. We need water more than food or sex.

Despite popular belief, bottled water is not better for you than tap water. In fact, up to 40% of all bottled water is tap water. We think that just because it’s bottled, it is healthier. This assumption is false. Some people might ask me, “Nathan, what about the fact that bottled water goes through a number of processes such as triple filtration, desalinization, double bypass-ultra, reverse osmosis and super-duper decontamination?'” My response is, “SO DOES TAP WATER.” Do you really think that tap water is not filtered or does not go through similar processes?

So bottled water is not better for you, but it really isn’t that expensive is it? I guess it wouldn’t seem that expensive if it contained, let’s say, specks of gold. Drinking pure oil would be cheaper. Mmm, that sounds tasty. Think about this: Would you like to pay $10 a gallon for gasoline? Because that is how much a gallon of bottled water can cost. We complain about rising gas prices, but we spend more on a gallon of bottled water than on a gallon of gasoline. Let me just say this, it is a good thing that cars don’t run on bottled water. Maybe we don’t want to have fuel cells in cars because they may start requiring bottled water to run. Then we would be in trouble.

Maybe I am being tough on bottled water. After all, any water is good water, right? Riddle me this: worldwide we spend $100 billion annually on bottled water. However a recent article states that everyone in the world could have safe drinking water and sanitation for only $30 billion a year. We could provide clean, safe drinking water and sanitation to the whole world for a fraction of the amount spent annually on bottled water. What are we to do? Are we in some sort of quagmire, stuck between a rock and a hard spot? I think not. Also, water from the Figi Islands or some other exotic location is not better. And Evian is naive spelled backwards.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20060204/wl_oneworld/45361268291139089785