How often do you reach for a “convenient” single use bottle of water before you go to the tap to fill your glass or reusable bottle? It’s become a wasteful and expensive habit many of us have developed, one that the Water and Wastewater Group at the City of Hamilton wants to stop in its tracks.
Julia Wagner says there are three major reasons why people buy single use water bottles: perceived value, perceived quality of the bottled water and convenience. But Wagner works hard to debunk all three of those myths.
From a convenience perspective, Wagner compares the single use bottles to a reusable stainless steel bottle. Similar in size, the reusable bottle is “just as easy to hold, and these bottles are just as convenient, so you can take them with you everywhere.”
Wagner encourages homeowners to keep a jug of water in the fridge so that there’s always cold water ready to drink. “So all you need to do is open up your bottle, your reusable bottle, fill it up and take it with you anywhere you’d like to go.”
This is much more convenient than buying cases of heavy bottled water at the store, lugging them home and putting them in the fridge. “That’s quite tedious,” Wagner thinks, and believes this really takes away from the convenience factor people perceive.
The price factor of single use bottled water is also incompatible with the reality. To prove this point, Wagner uses a cube that represents one cubic meter of water. “This is what the average household in Hamilton uses on a daily basis,” she says, “and this is actually what you see on your bill, per cubic meter of water.” With current water rates, this cubic meter can be filled with tap water for just over a dollar. Compared with the prices you pay for a liter of water at the store, which can run anywhere from $1 to $5 if it’s imported, it could cost upwards of $2,000 to fill. “So you really can’t compete from a price standpoint,” Wagner concludes.
And the quality of Hamilton’s tap water is second to none. “In our laboratory over 47,000 drinking water tests were conducted last year alone. We have a huge staff diligently working to make sure that the quality of water is constant,” Wagner says.
In fact, the quality of many cities’ tap water is so high that many companies actually use tap water to fill the bottles they sell. “So you’re paying a thousand times the price for the same product,” Wagner exclaims. “Manufactured demand is what has been created in regards to single use plastic bottles. But we want to get the word out that tap water is the same quality, a better price and just as convenient.”
All this and drinking tap water is better for the environment.
For more information on making the clear choice for your drinking water, visit
www.hamilton.ca/water.
