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The debate about how wasteful it is to buy bottled water never seems to go away around the Big Apple (home of the #1 water around—at least in the state.) But this weekend, a reader writing into the Times' City section wanted to put a specific dollar amount on tap versus bottles. A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection was able to do just that, telling the paper that city tap water costs $5.99 per 100 cubic feet, eight ounces of New York water cost five one-hundredths of one cent, or $0.0005, including the cost of treating the wastewater. That makes the same size eight ounce bottle of Poland Spring check in at 2000 times the cost at one dollar. Of course picking up a bottle of New York City tap water in stores will cost you even more than that.
More Evidence That Buying Bottled Water Leaves You All Wet
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Me, I use the Camelbak Better Bottle. You can get one at Whole Foods.
More info here.
You are understating the cost of the bottled water by not including the cost of disposing of the bottle.
"city tap water costs $5.99 per 100 cubic feet, eight ounces of New York water cost five one-hundredths of one cent, or $0.0005, including the cost of treating the wastewater" -
$.5(5 cents) $.05(5 tenths of 1 cent)$.005(5 one hundreths of a cent) $.0005(5 one thousanths of a cent)
So which is it ? just kidding or maybe I am the one with decimal deficiency
of course the service convenience value of getting a drink of water on the corner of any city street(priceless) well worth the 500-1000% mark up on the Poland Spring product versus finding a tap in the middle Manhattan or the burden of carrying home brew everywhere I travel
Yes, you are the one with the deficiency. $0.5 is 50 cents. $0.05 is 5 cents. $0.005 is 5 tenths of a cent, and so on. Don't confuse dollars and cents ;)
Oddly enough, I don't find it a burden to carry 32oz of water with me all day. Just fill it in the morning and I'm set, using the same bottle I've had for the last five years. On hot summer days, I refill it at work. Total cost: $10. And I get fluoride in the tap water, too, which has helped me avoid the dentist's drill my entire life.
I hope you thoroughly clean that bottle between each use because bacteria loves used water bottles.
Bah. Just empty out the bottle and let it dry overnight. That kills almost all of the nasties. No visible growth in my bottle after all these years. People are so paranoid about bacteria. If the Hygiene Hypothesis is accurate, excessive cleanliness is the cause of what we call "allergies," which the hypothesis says are an auto-immune reaction to having too few bacteria to combat.