Technobabble

Bottled Water Costs

Posted by on Aug 11, 2009 | 26 Comments

Do you drink bottled water? Have you ever taken the time to calculate how much you spend on bottled water in any given month? I can’t put an exact number on it, but I know that it’s been a considerable sum here at Ranchero Indebto.

While there’s no question that bottled water is convenient, the costs quickly add up in out-of-pocket expenses and environmental impact. When you get right down to it, the bottled water companies are selling nothing, other than convenience. Rest assured, when they find a way to cheaply bottle air, they’ll be selling that too.

When I sat down at the computer this morning, there were two empty water bottles strewn about the desk. Apparantly, the overnight gremlins couldn’t be bothered to deposit their Poland Spring and Aquafina bottles in the recycling bin. (At least they were empty, and not partially full and leaking all over the desk.)

Months back, I took a simple step to reduce our bottled water costs, by buying a Brita filtered water pitcher. Refilling the pitcher was easy to do, at first, and it seemed like everyone pitched in … for a while. We saw our bottled water costs plunge during the time when we used the Brita pitcher enthusiastically. But eventually, enthusiasm waned.

Could it really take all that much effort to simply refill the pitcher? Is it really easier to haul a new case of bottle water home from the supermarket every week or so?

  • Jeff Schwarz

    We use the 5 gallon water bottles from BJ’s at $4.99 each, and stainless steel refillable bottles I got from EBay with large openings so we can add ice cubes. We go through a 5 gal jug every 3-4 weeks and the jugs get returned to BJ’s for the deposit, so no addition to the waste stream. Initial cost for the dispenser was $100.00 that does both hot and cold water. We unplugged it as using ice cubes is easier and we do not use the hot side at all.

  • Silivrenion

    I live at a college that, regrettably, uses municipal water. Bottled water is in high demand, and the vending machines are often sold out.

    I’ve been considering getting a water filter pitcher for a while to remedy the situation, but I feel more inclined to do so after your post.

    Thanks!

  • Kevin

    I use to buy bottled water and even paid to have a water cooler in my office with those 5gal water bottles being delivered to my house but it just became ridiculous.

    I ended up buying a PUR water filter for my kitchen faucet and now I actually see my water being filtered before stocking it up in the fridge. I use the PUR every day (several times a day) and one 3-stage filter it still last a few months. You have to get into the habit of filing up water bottles yourself but I justify it by knowing the water is in fact filtered since I’m seeing it being done.

  • David

    Why bottled water? What’s wrong with the stuff that comes down the pipes, supplied by your water company? Some so-called bottled “pure” spring water has been proved to be anything BUT, containing all sorts of nasties that can cause stomach trouble.

  • http://ianfnelson.com Ian Nelson

    Where do you live?
    What is wrong with water from the tap?

  • nick savage

    The flip side is that nearly 100% of municipalities add chlorine and fluoride to the water.

    Months after I switched to using spring water from tap water, my occasional ‘mental fogginess’ went away.

    http://www.fluoridealert.org/50-reasons.htm

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  • http://www.twitter.com/jdills1196 John Dills

    I would much rather buy a case of pure life (its a few dollars) then buy the filter. Why? because it has much less fluoride. Reverse osmosis filters (filter fluoride) have a high cost.

  • _Stryker_

    As 2 Frenchmen were saying one day as they were trying to find a way to make money,,,hmmmm…lets bottle water and sell it,,,,,,,WHAT ! said the second Frenchie….who would buy it…Then came the reply…The Americans !…and so you have it…
    As far as fluoride goes…without that you would have to take fluoride pills, otherwise your teeth would rot.

  • Mats

    I don´t know what the use to clean water with or what they put in it in USA but the places I´ve been to the tap water tasted like the water in swimminpools. In Sweden we have really good tapwater. No need to buy. If I wan´t sparkling I use my Soda Stream. I saw a TV program from Norway. They sell water on bottle called Voss for 6.5 euro to USA. Thats is just ordinary water that people take a shower in and drink from tap.

  • Keith

    Dr. Mercola has many articles on water, tap water, bottled water and knowlegable readers chime in with their suggestions also. Many links to check out there. A basic carbon filter is very good, but doesn’t filter everything. Have to subscribe to his free newsletter to read the articles but they’re very informative.

    http://search.mercola.com/Results.aspx?q=water&k=water

    The best idea I’ve heard (and economical) is to install a 55 Gal Rainwater Barrel and catch pure water out of the sky, then filter it with a good water filter. I’ve seen 55 Gal Rainwater Barrels on Craigslist locally for $17!

    Bottled water would be MUCH less of a problem if people would recycle the plastic bottles.

  • http://DuMorWaterSpecialists Curt Davis

    I agree with not using so many of the little bottles at the store that we so commonly see on the roadsides afterwords. I sell the 5 gallon returnable bottles so we have no plastics being discarded. As far as the quality of water people drink ,it varies greatly through out the country, with some peoples ground water containing contaminants such as arsenic or worse. Yes people bottled water is here to stay. Our water is not getting better it is getting worse, with all the pollution, fertilizer run off from fields etc. With these times we live in and money being tight, most people cannot afford the expensive filters that it takes to make their own water clean so they turn to people like me to give them an affordable alternative.

  • http://yahoo.com lilly

    water costs a good amount and i see people wast it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it makes me made. i go green(help the enviorment) and so should you!!!

  • Sandy

    Yup; Klout’s info on me is either out-of-date or inaccurate; I stopped caring about Klout a while ago.

  • http://twitter.com/JoeFernandez Joe Fernandez

    Hey Kelly,

    I am one of the founders and the CEO here at Klout. The accuracy of our data is the most important thing to us here at Klout. The challenge here is we are dealing with extremely “dirty” data coming from Twitter, Facebook etc. To increase the fidelity on this data we have even had to slow down processing on our influencer of/influenced by calculations. Those calculations don’t impact your overall score and are primarily meant to be discovery mechanisms on our site.

    We continue to work on reducing the time between each data point on Klout profiles are processed across our whole user base. There are metrics that don’t change as much or don’t impact the score in a huge way that we update less frequently to make sure that the key metrics are always fresh. We should definitely be doing a better job on our site explaining this.

    This is definitely a work in progress and we appreciate this feedback.

    Thanks!
    Joe

  • http://twitter.com/shelbyhealy Shelby Healy

    This is very interesting. I was wondering if some sort of change happened in the last couple of weeks. I was at a 57, now I’m at 38. How could that drop so low in such a short period of time?

  • Kk+

    Klout score is a good relative measure of influence but a shitty absolute measure of influence. It’s one of many factors used to determined WTF is goin on out there on the internets. :)

  • http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

    Um, Shelly? I’m the first person to admit that I’ve had my own issues with Klout – but I followed both of your links above and the first one links strictly to @2morrowknights twitter feed, but not to anything indicating that he has said anything like what you quoted he had ‘on Tuesday’, while the second one links to a PR announcement about Peter Shankman’s NYC party – but nothing indicating that “Hotels and clubs in Las Vegas” have admitted any such thing.
    Could you please actually link the sources or your information? Those allegations hold some pretty heavy weight if not just rumors.
    Thanks!

    • Anonymous

      In addition to VIP events, the Palms is building out the “Klout Klub” which “”will allow high-ranking influencers to experience Palms’ impressive set of amenities in hopes that these influencers will want to communicate their positive experience to their followers.”

      Virgin America has also offered free flights to those with high Klout scores.

      More information here: http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=146189

  • Anonymous

    I think Klout has a ton of potential but I feel like too many are using it as a catch-all silver bullet. There needs to be a “Klout U” on what it is and isn’t.

    No measuring system is going to ever be perfect when we’re talking about “influence.” What is influence? On what topics? There’s a lot of stuff at play here. But it helps to have a guide.

    That said, I’m very nervous that there’s agencies who are basing their hiring decisions (I’ve heard of other cases, as well) on personal Klout scores. I know a lot of good strategists who aren’t Twitterati; people who have put together solid stuff but they’re not the “cool kids” personally. For gosh sakes, the person in question has a score of 73! That’s pretty high, and if that’s not enough, what is?

    The challenges of navigating a brand and an organization are quite different than being popular or influential on a personal account. There’s a lot more to the story, a lot more moving parts. I’ve seen a lot of popular people fail spectacularly when they get to implementing within the constructs of an organization.

    One of the things Klout does very well and why it’s been adopted so fast, as I was having a discussion with a corporate colleague, is make C-Suites and execs happy – they’re data, number driven. A number is something they can understand, regardless of what’s contained within it.. So they lean on it.

  • http://twitter.com/mikekujawski Mike Kujawski

    Patience people, patience. As Joe mentioned, the folks at Klout are obviously working hard to improve their algorithm and process. Like EVERY analytic tool out there, it’s only a tool. A tool that relies on data. The fact that the data is not perfect is not the tool’s fault. And even with perfectly accurate data, you still need a data analyst to put it in context. At present time, most people blindly take the numbers at face value and jump to conclusions. That’s the bigger problem here.

  • Anonymous

    I use KeePass and DropBox to do the same thing. Syncs with my Android phone as well. Even though the KeePass archive is in the “cloud” on DropBox, I control the access to the archive.

  • Christopher DeMero

    If you worried about your Google account, you can always use the two step verification method.

  • http://twitter.com/FrugalGeek The Frugal Geek

    Thanks, Ryan.

  • Decimus Strans

    You’re actually not putting your passwords in the cloud, you are actually putting a hash of them in the cloud. All the data is encrypted from your computer (and I tested it) and sent to their servers encrypted.

    Although, I do understand your fear of putting your passwords in the cloud.

  • http://neonenigma.com neonguru

    Sure, but I can decrypt all of those passwords by entering a single password which is stored somewhere, probably encrypted, in the cloud. If someone gets a hold of that one password…………………………………