What do you think of the quality of water in the world??? Is the plastic and water business going to solve most problems?

Replying to [Mercatus]:
Yes, bottled water would becoming more popular.
I see a company has develop holding water by plastic bag.
products for water would becoming more and more popular.
filtrating small apparatus are used by Chinese family now, which
orinally develop or made in US, which cost RMB200, and people
puring with this small apparatus for cooling. but I find this small apparatus still not perfect enough, not so convenient when using after one or two month, bcs the inside parts would becoming dirty and they need to replace it.

I think if to use a small pc of something, and people and clean it easily by themselves, they would be perfect.

Replying to [Mercatus]:

Bottled water is popular because it is portable and convenient for storage. Whether the industry continue to see long term growth very much depends on sustained consumer acceptance and counter measures by tap water suppliers. See the following extract:

"the results of our four-year study of the bottled water industry, including its bacterial and chemical contamination problems. The petition and report find major gaps in bottled water regulation and conclude that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water"
Source http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp

The majority of the bottling plants - whether they produce bottled water or soft drinks - are dependent on groundwater. They create huge water stress in the areas where they operate because groundwater is also the main source - in most places the only source - of drinking water in India. This has created huge conflict between the community and the bottling plants.

Private companies in India can siphon out, exhaust and export groundwater free because the groundwater law in the country is archaic and not in tune with the realities of modern capitalist societies.

The existing law says that "the person who owns the land owns the groundwater beneath". This means that, theoretically, a person can buy one square metre of land and take all the groundwater of the surrounding areas and the law of land cannot object to it. This law is the core of the conflict between the community and the companies and the major reason for making the business of bottled water in the country highly lucrative.

Take for instance the case of Coca-Cola's bottling plant in drought-prone Kala Dera near Jaipur. Coca-Cola gets its water free except for a tiny cess (for discharging the wastewater) it pays to the State Pollution Control Board - a little over Rs.5,000 a year during 2000-02 and Rs.24,246 in 2003. It extracts half a million litres of water every day - at a cost of 14 paise per 1,000 litres. So, a Rs.10 per litre Kinley water has a raw material cost of just 0.02-0.03 paise. (It takes about two to three litres of groundwater to make one litre of bottled water.)

However, water is not that cheap in the United States, home to Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The average cost of industrial water in the U.S. was Rs.21 per 1,000 litres in the late 1990s. It was Rs.90/1,000 litres in the United Kingdom and Rs.76/1,000 litres in Canada.

Treatment and purification accounts for the next major cost. Even with the state-of-the-art treatment system with reverse osmosis and membranes, the cost of treatment is a maximum of 25 paise a litre (Rs.0.25/litre). Therefore, the cost of producing 1 litre of packaged drinking water in India, without including the labour cost, is just Rs.0.25. In a nutshell, in manufacturing bottled water, the major costs are not in the production of treated and purified water but in the packaging and marketing of it.
The reason that companies do not have to bear the cost of the main raw material - water - has made this industry highly profitable. But the real cost of the industry is huge.

The cost of fast-depleting groundwater is incalculable and so is the cost of disposal of plastic bottles and pouches. These are hidden costs that society and the environment pay and will pay in the future. The sale of bottled water is therefore not environmentally sound by any stretch of the imagination.

There are much cleaner ways to access clean and healthy water and for this we will have to rethink our water paradigm.

Groundwater is the cleanest and cheapest source for all, but we have over-extracted and polluted it with natural contaminants, agro-chemicals and industrial waste. We will have to recharge and revive our groundwater bodies and for this the existing archaic law must change.
resource: HINDUONNET

Replying to [Mercatus]:I read a news article that said that in New York the restaurants have been ordered to serve only tap water ( filetered if required) in order to reduce environmental impact of handing bottle waste. At my own household I was buying bottled water a Dozen a week 1 litre water.
One day walking on the high street i discovered a Portable Table top water cooler with built in replaceable filter at the right price in order to save on handling Emply bottles. Ever since then I have been using this water - perfect for drinking and for making cups of tea or coffee.
The metered tap water supply is fit for drinking but has a nasty clorine tinge to it . This is clearly removed by the filteration process. I need to change filters once a month.
The economics was also good.

The local councils are also debating imposing limitatins of the amount of garbage being put out for disposal.,

If if use my experience as capable of being replicated across the country and some clever marketing from the water filter marketeers Bottled Water would lose their share of market to Filter manufacturers.

jpbliss

Quoting from [Jaidy30]:

Very interesting! It is really informative.

Replying to [Mercatus]:

I know the best quality of tap water is in the Netherlands, even an infant drink from a tap.

In Asia tap water is not safe to consume direct, it has to be boiled or filtered. Even if it sold in bottle I still doubt the quality

Quoting from [David Frencken]:

Replying to [Mercatus]:

I know the best quality of tap water is in the Netherlands, even an infant drink from a tap.

In Asia tap water is not safe to consume direct, it has to be boiled or filtered. Even if it sold in bottle I still doubt the quality

Singapore and Japan has safe tap water, but there seems to be this nuance that bottle water is better. To me, why buy bottle water when you can just as well drink straight from the tap water.