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.

[Marigold2]

I use a salad spinner to wash fresh red leaf or green leaf or Boson lettuce.
I think most of these were invented by someone who saw a need, a need that they had and tried to find a way to solve it.
Since it worked well for them they decided it would work for others.

[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.

[dab_20]

Take two clear glasses.

Take a bottle of tap water from any municipality and pour it into one glass.

Take a bottle of a common bottled water (dasani, poland springs, take your pick, as long as it's not mineral water) and pour it into the other glass.

Put both glasses on a light table.

You'll understand bottled water.

Agreed! I use the containers that filter water though. Saves on wasting plastic!

Some of those commercials, especially that foot scrubber one mentioned above, are so ridiculous!! The actors are just horrible, smiling that stupid smile while doing whatever their doing. LOL Drives me nuts.

And the "Order within five minutes and you'll get a second one free!". Oh, please, how many times is that commercial on a day?

[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.

[sana]

Well, then call me (and my husband) a sucker!! We use the salad spinner every day. We have on in the kitchen and one in the camper. I don't like wet lettuce in my salad. The salad shooter I have no excuse for.

The one I can't understand ANYONE buying? A BANANA SLICER!!?? Have you seen this thing? It's flat, the shape of a banana (sort of) with strings across, so you peel the banana, then place this thing over it to make even slices. REALLY?!

Here's a Crazy Banana Slicer. People are too lazy to actually cut bananas themselves?

[Karen]

Bananas being the easiest thing to slice, I cannot imagine how that product ever made it to market!

[phesina]

I use a Brita water filter pitcher. Pour tap water into it, the water runs through the filter and comes out much better. No extra expense for the water and no plastic being added to the landfills.

[Freedom]

Just go to the "as seen on TV" web site, some are pretty odd!

I think years back, Super Glue started out as one of these products. Now, you find it everywhere. That product took off! Works well, I always have some on hand.

I don't get the Debbie Meyer green bags, food keeps longer in her bags than in others? I never tried them, but 2 friends did and weren't impressed at all.

[pomtzu]

We don't do bottled water here on a regular basis, but if we are away from home and yearn for a drink, then bottled water it is. We have our own well, so don't have to worry about chlorine, fluoride, runoff off of who knows what, old lead pipes and who knows what else. I can't stand the taste of drinking water, other than what we have here at home. Years ago when my brother lived in FL, he lived in an area where there was a high sulfur content in the water. That was before the days of bottled water, and they had to always boil it. The smell was disgusting - like rotten eggs.

Re: the salad spinner. Didn't Tupperware come out with one of these many years ago - before the ones you see on t.v.?

I don't order anything I see on t.v., since just about all the department stores and pharmacy chains have the "as seen on t.v." sections now. Darned it I want to pay their outrageous shipping fees that amount to more than the product itself is worth!

[sparks19]

yes Pomtzu. I don't know if it was tupperware or not but salad spinners have been around for a long time.

[lizbud]

I'm pretty hardy about stuff like that For most of the world's population the criterion for drinkable water isn't 'Does it look nice?' but 'Will I die if this gets inside me?' I can understand shipping it to places where the second answer is 'yes', but just can't get right in my mind about the idea of water as a commercial product in the West, with all the environmental and personal-expense overheads that it involves.

Sort of proves the OP's point doesn't it? People will likely buy most
anything if it's advertised cleverly.

[cassiesmom]

Hmmm... a tea bag timer ... I've made tea and then gotten distracted-- I come back, the bag is still in the cup, and the tea is cold.

Pajama jeans? Do I wear them on the street or do I sleep in them?

[kokopup]

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