Why Do These Exist?

[Lady's Human]

We had a water cooler when we lived in MA. After working in a bottling plant, I got to the point where I couldn't stand the taste of tap water from the chlorine.

As to the environmental overhead, PET bottles are 100% recyclable, so unless the consumer is clueless, the plastic will be recycled into either more bottles, or rugs, or car parts, ad nauseum. Just because people can throw it in the trash doesn't mean they do.

[tokolosh]

We had a water cooler when we lived in MA. After working in a bottling plant, I got to the point where I couldn't stand the taste of tap water from the chlorine.

I passed through a pulp-mill town once, where I heaved every time I turned on a tap drank pop until the bus left. So I understand what you mean about smell. But really, even if I'd stayed in that armpit of a place I would eventually have gotten used to it.

As to the environmental overhead, PET bottles are 100% recyclable, so unless the consumer is clueless, the plastic will be recycled into either more bottles, or rugs, or car parts, ad nauseum. Just because people can throw it in the trash doesn't mean they do.

True. But it's still creating something that to my mind has little real cause to exist in the developed world. You can turn the bottles into other somethings, but that's ultimately just shuffling the plastic around - at an energy cost for the recycling itself, not counting the processing and transportation of the water to begin with. And meanwhile I believe we're still manufacturing plastic from scratch anyway. Eventually I see a time when we just run out of things to turn our plastic into, so I don't think of recycling as a permanent solution. There's signs of that in the city I live in already. If they could turn the bottles into clean water that would be great

I'm just sayin'. I don't get it. Because I come from a mindset where the bar for 'drinkable' is so different, bottled water looks to me like just as much of an invented market as the salad spinner or anything else mentioned here.

[Lady's Human]

Ask the Mayor about the water in Newton, MA.

Also, I've never seen a boil order come out for Poland Springs.

[Karen]

Ask the Mayor about the water in Newton, MA.

Also, I've never seen a boil order come out for Poland Springs.

We lived in an old house on an old street in Newton, and because lead was used in so many pipes for the water system, our water bills came with not a one-sentence warning, but a booklet titled "lead in your water." I never ever drank the tap water, want to keep all the brain cells I have, thanks! We always recycle all our water bottles, and any other plastic we can. If some day I move someplace where the water is clean, I'll drink it, no problem, drank the tap water growing up.