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Comment by Finnucane | Hacker News Reader

The business model of the bottled water industry is to take public water from limited local supplies and then distribute it globally, obviously at a significant profit to themselves, regardless of the actual need for that water.

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Globally is the key word here. I'm not familiar with bottling industries in the south west, but in general, if you're taking a scarce resource from a locality and distributing it elsewhere, it should be clear how that can quickly become problematic. It's more of an issue if that scarce resource is as fundamental to survival like water.

Ideally, the SW would be importing bottled water, not exporting water, because it's not something they have in abundance. If there are large commercial operations exporting water, they should be the first to be cut off from these operations. That seems very unlikely it would be permitted though.

Personally, I've never wanted to live in this area (or at least make a large investment in a home/property) due to the scarcity of water coupled with growth. Nothing against the region, just seems like an unecessarily impractical region to live due to environmental factors and the climate models I've seen, at least for my comfort levels.

There's plenty of drinking water if states manage their water sustainably. The biggest draw on water in most places is agriculture, not drinking water. There's no reason to pump aquifers dry and then use energy to transport water from elsewhere.

Don't forget the waste.

It takes ~3 units of water to bottle 1 unit.

To say nothing of the carbon impact with packaging, shipping, disposal.

To say nothing of the pollution with microplastics and estrogenics.

Ad nauseum.

From what I understand, it's the opposite. I cannot get the same bottled water in the southeast as in the northeast, because it's bottled locally.

Oh, they just mad cuz the companies get a concession for cheap. That is it.

Is that not a valid thing to be angry about?

Sure. Then just say I’m mad because these water bottling companies get the water concessions for cheap (and I don’t), instead of some other made up reason that might be less honest but a more sympathetic argument.

Arguably the reason they bottle the water is because of the cheap concessions. Without those, their profit margins are a lot slimmer and maybe the industry is much smaller, leaving more water out of bottles.

They're selling the cheapest commodity in the world for more than the price of gasoline. Even with smaller margins they're still making money hand over fist.

It can be both. Consider "brand name" waters such as Voss or Perrier or S Pellegrino.

I thought about mentioning those companies, but I considered them to be too small of a market comparatively. For example, almost everyone buys 12-24 packs of their semi-locally bottled water, including national brands Dasani & aquafina that come from local bottling companies. I can't talk about the water issues in Fiji and France, but my guess is that it's <1% the total volume of bottled water consumed in any given area (outside LA or NYC of course).

Sort-of related, but my local water supply is used for bottled water. They were drilling a new well which was not completed on time, but had already signed an agreement with the company for water rights. I was unable to wash my car, etc, but they could happily bottle water.

We have a lot of limestone here, so our water is pretty good but has significant mineral content. Without a water softener my faucets would be ruined within years, caked full of minerals.

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