"I Don't Believe in Bottled Water"

... You may have heard me use that pretentious line before. And you probably rolled your eyes at me. Understandable, because I haven't thoroughly explained myself until now. 

Although both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have admitted that Dasani and Aquafina are merely glorified tap water, the bottled water industry continues to generate millions of dollars of profit annually. The vending machine downstairs is continually restocked with dozens of bottles of water. Grocery stores continue to order pallets of bottled water, confident that they will sell every ounce.


Why do Americans feel compelled to buy overpriced tap water? It’s not the delicious vitamins or thirst-magnifying sodium added. (Tap water consistently wins in taste tests over bottled water.) It’s not the aesthetics of plastic bottles or creative advertizing. (There are plenty of pretty reusable options on the market.) Instead, it’s the culture surrounding tap water. The preconceived notion that tap water is “dirtier” than purified bottled water is completely false and needs to be reevaluated.


I fell victim to this common misconception as a high school student. Every school day for four entire years, I packed one Dasani water bottle in my lunch box. That’s a grand total of 720 bottles of Dasani. At the current price of Dasani, ($3.99 for a dozen) I drank my way though $239.40 of bottled water.  

I don't know why I was an Exclusively-Dasani-Brat.

Not only is this a hefty ding in my parents’ pocketbook, but also a heavy burden left in the landfill. With each empty bottle weighing in at a whopping 13 grams, I wasted a total of 9.36 kilograms of plastic. That’s about the mass of a one-year-old baby. 

I rummaged through the recycling bin. Let's assume Deer Park bottles weigh the same as Dasani bottles.

You may argue— babies are pretty small! My point is— babies grow. Not that my plastic is growing, but that if my consumption patterns hadn’t changed, the pile would be. In fact, at the rate of one bottle every day, it would only take me 11 years to waste my own weight in only plastic water bottles.

There is a viable alternative: tap water. Not just tap water when it’s convenient. Not just tap water when we’re trying to save a few dollars. Always tap water. Say goodbye to bottled water forever. Even if you’re currently not the most avid bottled water drinker, it quickly adds up: one water bottle every weekday leads to $86 a year. Luckily, if we commit to make the permanent switch to tap water, these $86 dollars can do much more good than provide you with overpriced garbage. The very same money that would have been spent can provide clean water to those who would otherwise have to walk miles daily in search of a life source. Once we stop taking for granted the outrageous resources we have, then we can radically bring change where change- and water- are needed. 

With options like these, who wouldn't want to make the switch?