Many years ago, I remembered having a discussion on bottled water and why were consumers driving the category sales. The discussion on why consumers buy bottle water was center around the two points, do people buy bottled drinking water for safety or convenience? The days of drinking water out of public water fountains seems to have lost some of its luster. We have all become somewhat cautious of our contact with the public. You can not go to any store that does not have wipes by the shopping carts so you can wash the handles of your shopping cart to avoid any germs from the previous person who used the cart. I guess it would be hard to accept that we would want to share the same drinking fountains. I always thought the consumer rush to bottled water was centered around safety but the recent news that bottle drinking water may be less safe than tap water makes my argument on Safety null and void.
So it must be for the convenience that bottled water boomed to over $10 billion in sales? Bottle water brings the added benefit of No fuss no muss just drink and throw for those on the go. NO dirty water glasses to clean!
We should be very happy that there are cool brands like Sigg and Kleen that have created alternatives for us in reusable bottles in sleek packaging. I am also gad to see that
Brita and other water filter manufacturers have also taken on bottle water BIG business with the facts water filters can purify your drinking water at home and reduce the use of all the plastic from ” throw and Go” water bottles. While I do not have any desire to help the bottle water companies continue their “throw and Go ” plastic water bottle I would like to see a bottle deposit placed on all the bottles to help increase recycling rates that are below 20%.