Editorial in 
the NYTimes today re drinking bottled water includes this passage:
“almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands. Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.
“Next, there’s the environment. Water bottles… are made from natural gas and petroleum. …it takes about 1.5 million barrels of oil to make the water bottles Americans use each year. That could fuel 100,000 cars a year instead. And, only about 23 percent of those bottles are recycled… Add in the substantial amount of fuel used in transporting water, which is extremely heavy, and the impact on the environment is anything but refreshing. ”
Okay, back to me now: Plus, add in the smog and traffic of all that water being toted around the earth, from Vichy or the Ozarks, and you have an ecological and quality-of-life nightmare. Oh, and the balance of trade (anyone care anymore about the worth of the US dollar?) And the litter of disposable bottles. And the pretentiousness of my-water-is-better-than-yours.
It’s enough to drive a woman to Coke.
Just an aside: I grew up in an area where the word for any carbonated beverage was Coke, not soda or pop or even (weird New Englanders) tonic. Did you? Here’s a blog entry about it all….
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
[…] all the recalls for dangerous toys, the cheap quality of cheap clothing, and the movement towards supporting local businesses… not to mention the “rebirth” of ecological concerns, more and more people are […]
Aaaahhh Calistoga water – the real stuff. 🙂 I do miss that! I think it’s crystal geyser that is bottled from Cobb Mountain, Kate B. It was back in the late 70’s – maybe real early 80’s when they started bottling the water up there and most of us thought who would buy bottled water… Guess we just didn’t have the vision. LOL (Kate H, just a note that Kate B is from the neck of the woods (literally) that Jan and I grew up. Mountains, lakes, very few people (back then) and Calistoga was just a weeeeee town. But, our town, Middletown was much smaller. They do now have a consignment shop though.
Deb
hmmm, I drink “Calistoga Water” every day… it comes out of my tap. Living in Calistoga, CA, I can attest to how refreshing it is.
However, the bottled water that comes from Calistoga, I am not sure where they get that. Just never could get into the whole bottled water thing.
kate
Interesting Kate, as always. 🙂 Just a few days ago I read an article about Coke’s most profitable product – WATER. LOL In fact, the packaging has been said to mislead buyers Aquafina is nothing but tap water. The same tap water anyone can get.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/07/27/pepsico.aquafina.reut/index.html
Now their packaging has to indicate that it’s tap water. I wonder how many federal dollars was spent forcing a corporate giant to do what is right – not to even think about all the attorney fees because this began with a grass roots organization, forcing disclosure. I “think” I read or maybe I dreamed that Dasani water is also tap water.
The arsenic level is over federal standards in our area – maybe $ would be better spent getting tap water up to better standards for those of us who drink from the tap.
Deb