The ugly story of how corporate America convinced us to spend so much on water
vox.com
vox.com
In the UK (and I dare say much of Europe) its not at all uncommon to ask for a tap water at a restaurant. I drink around 2 litres of tap water a day, have done all my life.
Having been to a fair few places in the US I can see why people dont want to drink it, it stinks and tastes pretty awful. How you manage to take pure natural water and make it taste like feet is beyond me.
It was very noticeable when I passed through Dubai airport and tried to fill up a water bottle. I tried several cafes and all told me they don't do that, I'd have to buy bottled water. I've never been refused that in the UK when asking politely. Ended up finding the water fountains, but I think there was only 1 fountain per terminal, and 2/3 weren't working when I visited.
But of course, it’s a convenient excuse to sell bottled water. Not impossible to have water delivered for a drinking fountain.
And the water tastes salty.
The intended moral of the story is, while I am unfamiliar with the UK I suspect that water distribution is likely far more centralized there as the place is much smaller overall vs the US and more densely populated than most areas in the US. Higher population density means more money to build the facilities to have better tasting water. Plus a centralized administration would result in a more homogeneous quality across the region. Here in the US, each city typically runs its own water system with little to no state involvement other than periodic inspections for standards compliance.
Hoestly, the savings for the economy in terms of wasted electricity from scaled up kettles and the reduction in chemicals needed to remove the near instant buildup of limescale would be worth it 10 times over.
When you ask yourself in the super market "Who in their right mind wants a snickers and mint flavored orea?" this is that segment.
So, in my case, the beer industry was (is? This was a decade ago) losing sales to ready-mades (Barcadi Breezer, cans of rum and coke, etc.) and a way to hold on to consumers was simply to add new, limited run recipes.
All classes of drinks are trying to hold on to consumers who are being stolen by other classes of drinks, by offering up new colors and strange flavor combinations.
But at the same time I think you are right about companies training consumers to drink larger and larger portions sugared drinks. Like, 1.5 liter coca-cola isn't even the largest size drink in the cinema sometimes!
The article lists only two areas with unsafe water that have had a lot of media attention, but there are so many places under water boil orders that I can't even keep track of them all. Every single state I've checked shows they've had some problem with their water in the last year or two (caused by things like contamination, infrastructure failures, storm damage, power outages etc) that caused them to issue warnings not to drink the water without boiling it first. I found one boil order just two towns over from me that had already been lifted by the time I heard about it!
Because these types of issues are constant and everywhere it makes drinking the water while traveling very risky and since I don't obsessively monitor the sites and social media profiles for my own town/city/county I can't be sure I'd always know about one issued for the water in my own home!
Nobody seems to have much confidence in their local water quality and after seeing how in flint MI they worked to hide the danger from the public and faced no meaningful consequences for their actions it's not hard to imagine why.
What can we do but get a good filter for our homes and watch for notices like a hawk? Seems like when outside of the home, water bottles are the only way to be sure the water won't poison you.
When it comes to bottled water I strongly prefer spring water over the salted tap water soda companies push on us, but I wonder what the PFAS content of spring water is. Now that even rain water is contaminated and unfit for humans and animals is natural filtration good enough to keep spring water non-toxic?
I know it wouldn't help for what happened in Flint but those events are rare. Never heard of single one outside US.
Funny thing is that I drank a lot of tap water as a child and it was perfect. But then I started buying sparklig water and tapwater never tasted good to me again.
Different places really do have different tastes. Sometimes it's even still distinct when you make tea.
Yes, in my house, in the kitchen. Like in an office. A big 5 gallon bottle of purified water sitting on a little refrigerated tap. It's literally always good. I want a small glass? No problem, pure water nice and cold. Fill up a bottle to go? Also no problem.
I get it, tap water doesn't always taste great. Also not a problem! I have a couple of giant 5 gallon plastic bottles, which I occasionally take to the local Glacier/Primo machine at the gas station (!) and fill for literally a couple of dollars. It tastes delicious.
After moving across the country, we bought a new water cooler that has a button that automatically dispenses fresh water into a dog bowl next to the cooler. Like, how great is that? My dog can drink water as nice as I'm drinking.
It's like, people don't even want to put in the minimum effort to drink water, which can easily be delicious with a Brita or a cooler or whatever. It's the foundation of life. Come on, people.
Our family goes through a 5 gallon jug in less than a week. I have a few jugs, which I'll refill a few times, and then the local grocery store or Walmart has a thing where you can drop off old jugs to replace with new ones, sterilized and pre-filled with fresh water. (Clearly this is a thing many other people are doing since the infrastructure exists, even though it's never advertised and I never see other people doing it.)
There is literally no health risk involved here. Yes, I go to refill or replace jugs every two weeks or so. Not a big deal. Easier than buying soda or smaller bottles of water, IMO.
Edit: We used to use Britas but that was honestly more hassle than just dealing with the jugs.
It is remarkable to me, an actual person who lives an actual life in America, that anyone might question the desire to have 1) fresh water or 2) decent-tasting water. Internet trolls are questioning the base essence of humanity, and it's honestly troubling.
The next office we shared with a larger company that connected a water line to a tankless device. I was also a little skeptical of these funky plastic lines, but it got enough use to probably not be a problem.
Of course there was the water tap, which serves perfect water, so all this nonsense was for carbonation and cooling.
> Of course there was the water tap, which serves perfect water
You are aware that the "water tap" also goes through pipes to get to you? It doesn't originate like magic at the faucet exit.
I live in a developed country so the water from the source is not the problem, pretty much all risks are from defects in private infrastructure and time the water may spend in that infrastructure.
It is literally bizarre to hear someone try to question the average "5 gallon jug of water" or a "residential water line" as something that can be potentially harmful in generic, except due to some sort of ludicrous edge case, when water jugs or refrigerator water lines have been used by literally billions of people across continents for decades.
What is even up with this kind of comment? How did you become "anti water line to an ice maker"? Do you work for Nestle, or Coca-Cola?
Of course not, they leave still water in freshly manufactured plastic bottles.. Heathens¹.
I don't see what's odd about considering water contamination the way I do using water flow as a measure for disgust in comparison to buying plastic bottles to have less regulated water in some misguided sanitary-sealing concept of disgust.
depending on the height of the building - anything more than 6 floors - the water you are drinking is likely pumped to tanks on the roof and fed back down ... want to know what else might be in those tanks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9RLbRZJr0
TLDR: I would worry a lot more about the water you put in your mouth sitting in faeces overnight than it sitting in a plastic tube for a week.
The slippery slope is if bottled water is a con, aren’t all bottled and canned drinks a con?
If there weren’t bottled water I wouldn’t drink from the tap instead. I would buy a bottle of something less healthy, like Coke.
The town I grew up in had plenty of public faucets, in the town centre and in parks. This was a solved problem. Then the taps got removed and now we’ve all lost that choice.
The city I live in now has plenty of public water fountains in malls though, so we’re moving back in the right direction.
Regardless, my family avoided our w well water back up in NY since is reeked of sulfur and no fix ever worked.
This need for bottled water is relatively new. Some of us on HN lived at a time when the concept was absurd, others have grown up with bottled water.
Meeting rooms used to serve a carafe of water and glasses. Now everybody gets a bottle. So obviously they are competing.
No, obviously not, because orange juice and sodas aren't don't come out of your tap. None of them are, as the article says, a "public resource [turned] into a private commodity.” Also, everyone knows you don't need juices but that you do need water, which is why one is a utility and the other is a luxury. The way that bottled water is a con is that it's packaging something you already have and don't need more of and in a not so environmentally-friendly way.
I do agree that a lot of municipal water sources taste really off.
People who say tap water is exactly the same aren’t being entirely honest. They do the same thing and a lot of people don’t care about how it tastes but plenty do and aren’t always hurting the environment.
I use an RO (reverse osmosis) and run that through alkaline filter and that is the gold standard for me I have not tasted better water, even evian or those expensive Zip systems.
I don’t recall how good Brita is but I imagine similar to Zip in that it will get rid of most of that chlorine taste and filter out a lot of particles which is a big improvement. If I were renting I would consider Brita for the convenience of nothing to install and no ugly unit.
I wouldn’t buy bottled water for home unless very low on choices! Because it seems wasteful.
The point is that many people are convinced that tap water is unsafe, or at least that bottled water is safer. In most regions of most developed countries, that is untrue. Buying water as a gourmet experience is something different.
> The slippery slope is if bottled water is a con, aren’t all bottled and canned drinks a con?
To a degree, yes. There was a time when people used to carry around a thermos of coffee, much as people carry around their reusable water bottles today. People can buy significantly less expensive bulk packaged drinks or concentrates, then transfer it to reusable portable bottles.
I'm usually reluctant about the products that contain a lot of water. Mostly because I have cheap water at home already. Why would I buy and haul more water?
So why would I buy a detergent gel if I can buy powder? Liquid soap if I can buy a bar?
That said, I find that a somewhat weak argument made under public pressure, and I carefully try to avoid buying Nestlé products for many reasons, one of which is the statement made in the video above.
_When I was a kid_ we had a fountain in the hallway. How do they manage all of the bathroom break requests? And, when I was in elementary school, you didn't really _want_ to use the school toilet. Ewww. Gross.
Having lived in Italy, my experience is that Italians are pretty obsessed with bottled water. Well really bottled spring water to be exact. At restaurants especially. The exception would be in areas where you can get spring water from the source like a mountain resort. Spain is quite similar although I've only spent months at a time there so I'm less experienced in their views on water.
In the US it varies, but it's still fairly easy to find restaurants that bring a glass of tap water without even asking you. Big city restaurants and upscale restaurants will try to sell you bottled water but asking for tap water is not frowned upon like it would be in Italy.
I haven't spent enough time in Switzerland to comment on that, so maybe you could give more details on your experience there.
Sorry, that's my fault, I was editing my comment to make it more concise but managed to also extract its clarity. :)
I would agree about Italy and Spain. At least in Italy, many restaurants provided some regional brand of mineral water from a local-ish spring, but I virtually never saw someone asking for tap water.
In the US, I would even be surprised if I asked for water and was brought a bottle that I would be charged for, although I'm sure there are places that will try and up-sell bottled water.
In Switzerland, there's something of a dichotomy in my experience. In homes and most public spaces, including self-serve restaurants that often have a filling station, tap water is almost always the expectation. It's also much more accepted to drink directly by putting one's mouth up to a tap, whereas in the US I imagine most people would find a dedicated water fountain, cup, bottle, etc. With waiter service, however, there seems to be at least a weak expectation in Switzerland that a patron will order some beverage. Asking for tap water didn't seem frowned upon, but I would get noticeably more hesitation for it than anywhere I've been in the US or Canada.
EDIT: Minor rewording for clarity.
This is bizarre.
Who thinks you can't drink tap water? Maybe, just maybe, someone things "hey, I like the taste of bottled water better, so I'll drink that because I don't mind the cost".
The article stinks of some weird victimhood where corporations take away free will from consumers.
There is value captured in the health, convenience, safety and satisfaction aspect of on-demand, portable, trustworthily quality-assured water access for a premium that this piece doesn’t really deal with.
Does anywhere even do good public water infrastructure? I wouldn’t trust a public fountain or refill station in my city.
Yep, developed countries do.
It's impressive the logical hoops you'll jump through to justify terribly inadequate public services and then just wave it away saying "it's good to pay for better quality".
You can't taste many industrial chemicals or even biological contaminants. Tap water can taste great and be unsafe. And taste horrible due to minerals and be perfectly safe. You really need to see regular reports on water tests to understand if the local infrastructure provides safe drinking water.
It's theoretically possible that your particular town's tap water comes straight from the devil's armpit, and has a generous helping of cyanide and arsenic in it, but in the vast, vast majority of the developed world, there is not a damn thing wrong with it.
https://bestlifeonline.com/worst-drinking-water/
A drip (aka wick) filter is a cheap enough way to remove a lot that.
https://bestlifeonline.com/best-drinking-water/
I guess that depends on where you are.
Also take a look at the number of contaminants in the water for each those cities in your source. It's not zero for any of them.
Why? Liquids are restricted at security, but bottles aren’t.
Brought an empty sodastream concentrate bottle before out of desperation.
Whenever an airport doesn’t have fountains, I always ferry a complaint.
Too often not.
https://bestlifeonline.com/worst-drinking-water/
And that's not an endorsement for bottled water, which has also often been found to be as bad as or worse than tap water.
I use a drip / wick filter. Very cheap and it removes a lot of the bad stuff and makes the water taste better.
I don’t know for sure, but I think parent was making a quip about the U.S. not being a developed country.
Most municipalities in industrialized countries regularly publish water quality tests and reports. Most areas also have independent testing labs that are used by private citizens to test their well water, so you're always free to double-check the official reports.
Rural areas are the ones who often don't. And industrial farming isn't the only way (literal) shit can contaminate your water supply.
Well yes, that's why I mentioned reports in the first place.
> And industrial farming isn't the only way (literal) shit can contaminate your water supply.
Agreed. Don't drink water out of fresh looking mountain streams unless you want to risk being sick for weeks.
But the topic is tap water & bottled water. In rural areas in developed countries and where there is little risk of industrial farming contamination, there should be no hesitation in drinking the tap water as a visitor. If you live there, then of course get the water tested. Trusting any water long term without tests is a risk. And since lots of testing is either free or very cheap, there is no reason not to.
That doesn't appear to be the case[0], but I'm no expert on these things.
What I do know is that water chlorination can provide safe drinking water for millions who don't (or didn't, until their water was chlorinated) have safe drinking water.
>At least leave tap water stand still for couple of hours, so the chlorine gets out!
That was my first thought and it's a good one, if such things concern you.
[0] https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2022/04/examining-the-...
It's pretty sad to see that isn't the case anymore, assuming it ever was in the first place. Nobody in a nation with as much wealth as we have in the US should have to plan a glass of water hours in advance to make sure they aren't being harmed or have to buy and maintain expensive filters for their home.
We really need to start demanding better.