Posted on: September 29th, 2009 by Reuben Turner

It’s an interesting question. We’ve all been conditioned to think that the water in the bottle is what we’re paying for.

Actually, it’s the bottle that’s the expensive bit – making it, getting it to you, and disposing of it afterwards all cost you money, either at point of purchase or through your taxes. (Did you know that 2.5% of global oil production goes into making plastic bottles for water?)

The water itself doesn’t seem to have any extrinsic benefit. I’m fairly sure that few microbiologists would be able to differentiate between water that comes in a bottle or water that comes out of a tap (indeed, in many countries it’s the same water).

Taste tests? You already know what they’ll say.

So if you’re paying for the bottle, why throw it away? A campaign that encourages people to refill bottled-water bottles from the tap, even just once, would have major benefits for the environment. It might encourage people to drink more water too.

But doing that would require getting people to change their ‘default’ setting. To think that the bottle, not the water, is the valuable bit. That’s how change happens. The only question left is, how do we get it done?