Lugging water

While out and about on another hot and humid Sydney day, I spotted three shoppers taking turns carrying their heavy shopping to the train station.

The heavy shopping was a large plastic canister of drinking water. It must have weighed 15kg or so – a lot of weight to be carrying around on a hot day. This was not buying water to drink there and then because we were out and about and felt thirsty. This was the drinking water supply for home.

Isn’t it odd that in a city with perfectly good and safe drinking water, people still feel the need to buy “better” drinking water in a branded pack. How much is marketing responsible for creating the spring water market? The artificial need for “better” water? The fear of plain tap water?

I have actually had someone say to me “I buy brand X water because… um… it is brand X.” And it was just water, without any “value”-add such as flavouring or bubbles.

This seems to me a great example of the creation of a completely pointless product for the sake of profit. And at what cost to the environment? Just think of all the shipping and packaging involved. Imagine what we could do with these same resources for those on this planet who do not actually have safe drinking water.

And for what? Easy profits from selling us something we already have?

3 comments on “Lugging water”

1. Bettina said:
   

   Ahh, but how do you know that Sydney has perfectly good and safe drinking water? Maybe they are selling us a product WITHOUT some things we already have - like guardia and cryptosporidium. Oh, and fluoride, too

   
   28 February 2007 at 1:59 pm
2. Zern said:
   

   “Truth is, there’s a good chance that fancy water you’ve just forked out a buck for comes from just the same place — a municipal water supply.” on MSNBC.

   “Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing–producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy…” on Common Dreams News Centre.

   And another also from Common Dreams.

   Plus loads more on Google.
   

   
   1 March 2007 at 10:36 am
3. Zern said:
   

   Some appalling numbers:

   “…in just 40 hours, Australians spend more than $1.4 million on bottled water – enough to build 365 wells in Africa.”

   From WorldVision Australia.

   
   8 March 2007 at 11:28 pm

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