Bottled Water

Still, we all have no problem finding half-assed excuses. I think mine is pretty good:

Sure, you Americans are insane for buying uncarbonated water in bottles, who would do shit like that? I, however, don’t like and don’t drink uncarbonated water. Whenever I drink water it has to be carbonated (which isn’t all that great because the tap water quality in my region is actually pretty awesome — miles ahead pretty much anything you could get in bottles, especially the cheap stuff). Oh, sure, there are these gizmos that let you carbonate your tap water but it just doesn’t taste the same. I tried pretty much every brand.

See, I promised you a half-assed excuse.

I work outside in 40C heat, in the sun for 8-10 hours a day; municipal water doesn't cut it for me. I've drank over 4 liters of water inside of an 8 hour period and have still needed to drink a minimum of a 1L gatorade to get hydrated enough to actually urinate. (Note: we're recommended to drink 1.2 liters in a day, and I can get through 5 liters in 1/3, it's advised to drink no more than 1 liter per hour* of heavy exercise or extreme heat exposure before you risk water intoxication)

Water Jug coolers simply don't cut it, even filled with ice cubes you'll only get until noon. I freeze 3 bottles of water, use ice packs and still my water can start getting warm on a hot sunny day.

Since I moved to an apartment building our water has actually been of good enough quality to filter. Where I used to live the water had an acrid taste, even filtered, and when we had a municipal waterline break it only made it worse (note because we had bottle water, we weren't all that concerned when we didn't have water for two days).

I use a bottle for a work week, refilling it with filtered water. I buy it for at most $3 (got it down to $2 before) a case containing ~4.6 gallons (35 x 500ml) and it's spring not municipal. Here in Canada it has to provide the source, has mineral contents on the label (my tap doesn't!) and as for meeting e.coli tests I find it rather moot considering the water is ozonated, and it's there whenever my water supply is down.

The facts about bottled water, for me, is that it enables me to stay hydrated (and cooler) during a day without dying from dehydration, it can be stored at ambient temperatures for well over a year, it's of a far better quality than my bare municipal supply, doesn't contain insane amounts of fluoride (or any) and supplies the mineral contents. Most importantly of all (for some people I know who are affected by this in Hamilton) it doesn't even contain trace amounts of lead or mercury, and considering the Hamilton region is considering changing the makeup of their municipal water so that it doesn't leach lead from piping rather than remove the lead pipes!

I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable with the idea of drinking or even showering in leaded water. Despite lead absorption through skin being rare, I think when it's covering your entire body it's present at some rate.

Sorry, bottled water is just fine for me. The reason I filter water is because it's economically prudent and for all I can tell (where I am at least) it tastes the same. Not buying 3 cases of water a week saves me roughly $450 in a year, which can be spent wherever I want from buying that $100 bottle of scotch to buying video games or whatever, I could even use that $450 to take the better part of a week off and who knows, plant a tree to save the environment or some other crap. There's far better ways to save the planet than to worry about bottled water, you know by renovating power plants, building nuclear + green, subsidizing improvements to home insulation levels. Offer subsidies to people who buy high-efficiency appliances, like washing machines (generally the most expensive appliance to run in any house) and dryers.

These infographics never seem to be created by people with hard water or well water. Life does exist outside of San Fransico, and even with a water treatment system, water can taste bad. Sometimes people take action for reasons you don't understand.

I'm not sure how much of that info-page to believe. Right at the top it cites bottled water as costing $10/gallon, which is way more than I've ever paid.

To the latter; the water is independently tested by a government agency, and as I said the mineral contents (including heavy metals) is posted on the label.

To the former, as you obviously read enough of my comment, I stated I fill the bottles on average 4 times a week (new bottles monday used until friday) with filtered water. Tap water here tastes disgusting and has huge amounts of chlorine, and in areas the municipal and house lines contain lead or are made of lead.