Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

I have to just shake my head at some of the things we do in this nation and maybe also around the world. My continuing amazement is about water. How many of us 50 years ago would have ever envisioned paying inordinate amounts for water! Yes, you can go to Sam's Club or BJs, or Costco and buy bottled water for about 10 cents each for half liter bottles and due to the contamination of some of our rivers and streams it might seem the right thing to do to have clean water. What I'm mostly referring to is our obsession to invent more and more expensive ways to sell plain old H2O. We put a little fizz in the water and now it costs 75 cents rather than a dime. Then we add flavor in such small amounts it hardly tickles the taste buds and we add on another quarter. Import it from overseas and add 2.00 to the bottle! One company actually throws that in our face calling it's product Hint! Just think, it has such a small amount of flavoring added the company points this out in the name! Now we get into the imported waters from Finland, and Islands in the South Pacific -- Fiji Water. We have Smart water that is really smart because we are paying extra for it to be smart. About five years ago water overtook soda as the #1 consumer beverage. Back when I was 10 and taking a drink from a garden hose, how was I supposed to know that a whole gastronomic experience in water awaited me in the future. Last year I was at a garden that had a beverage kiosk. The sign read: Water, Soda, Tea, Coffee 7.50! Water has now been upgraded to the level of all other drinks, and even above. I'm not much of a drinker so I haven't kept up with beer prices but my guess is that for 3.50 (the cost of a bottle of VOSS), you could have a pretty nice beer!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

As the song says, "...people are crazy."

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

I just bought a six pack of Bud and it was $9.50!
I’m switching to water!

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

The irony is it's not the water you are paying so much for. It's the bottle, packaging, handling, shipping, advertising and warehousing you are paying for. I bought a case of generic bottled water several years ago. I always keep bottled water in my vehicle, primarily for my dogs. I'm still using the same bottles a few years later. I simply refill them with double filtered water from my kitchen.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

We re-use water bottles also. (Good thick-wall ones, not the crinkly plastic ones.)

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

An excellent Hoppyum IPA from Foothills Brewing is $17.99 for 12 bottles or $1.50 each,so who needs water? Or as the old joke goes, I’ve never been that sick

HOHIMER

I predict in the future we will see bottled air for sale.
There is already a place online where you can by bottled 'puppy’s breath'!

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

I don't know the price of the small bottles of water here, as I don't buy it. We do buy the 5-gallon bottles of "purified water", though, as it's just as necessary here for foreigners as in Mexico. It costs the equivalent of 40 cents for a 5-gallon bottle. I have set up my own ultraviolet filtration system in the kitchen - which can handle 6-gallons per minute (we don't need that capacity, but it's good to have). We use that for all food that's washable, as well as dishes, etc. - anything related to anything ingestible.

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

HamB

When ever I see an ad for "pure spring water"
I picture some guy using a garden hose to fill a pallet of plastic bottles....

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

starlifter Loc: Towson, MD

Not to mention those d..n plastic bottles in the country side. I clean up a stream next to my house and during and after rain that's all you see floating bye and left when the water recedes. why worry about global warming when your going to drown in plastic.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

There's a reason smart water is so expensive: It's still paying off its student loans.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I lived in Pittsburgh for a while and had some work in the mountains to the east. On a back country road there was a spring. It was made into a nice concrete catchbasin with the water flowing into it. People came from miles around to fill jugs with that pure water.

If you walked up the hill from the spring you would find another concrete structure. It contained the chlorinator. Since it was a public water supply, it was required by law to be treated.

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

That same six pack would cost you over $12 in Springdale Utah.