Water marketing

A family of 3, who rely on bottled water exclusively will, by the time their first child is 18, have already spent the equivalent of that child's college education in a public university on bottled water.
Nestle, the maker of Zephyr Hills water, gets its water from "underground sources in economically depressed communities". Forty percent of all bottled water comes from a tax-supported municipal water supply. Coke owns Dasani, which gets its water from Broward County aquifers and bottles it at Pembroke Road in Hollywood. The average bulk cost of public water is 1-2 cents a gallon. Publix charges $1.50 for a 12-ounce bottle, tax included- or $10-20 a gallon, about 500 to 1,000 times the usual price. Coke does put it thru a secondary reverse osmosis procedure that can remove any minerals present, and as such, sells it as "purified" water.
Ralph Terrero, assisitant director of Miami-dade water and Sewer, says "all they do is put it thru a carbon filter and bottle it".
Miami's drinking water, like much of Hollywood's, is obtained from the Biscayne Acquifer, a porous limestone formation located just below the surface. The water that slowly seeps thru the limestone nooks and crannies becomes the ground water that provides county residents with approximately 347 million gallons of drinkable water every day. As it slowly flows at a rate of about 2 feet per day it picks up minerals and other unsavory elements from storm water runoff, underground storage tanks, and waste disposal sites.
That is why public water runs thru numerous tests before its released. "We do about 15,000 tests a year", says Terrero. "The water exceeds the state and federal drinking water requirements", he is quick to add, and has the documentation to back up those claims.
Each of Miami's two water pumping stations pumps the water from the wells, softens it thru the lime process, filters, disinfects it, and then sends it thru 7,000 miles of pipes to our sinks.
NBC-6 did a blind taste test in 2003 with Dasani, Zepherhills, and tap water. One out of three participants could tell a difference.
The same odds as a guess.
Last year Americans disposed of 22 billion plastic water bottles, at least 85% of which wound up in landfills. Its probably more in Miami because its recycling programs are pretty lame. That is 70 million bottles a day at a cost of near 11 billion.
The City of Miami doesn't disagree with that lame assessment but says that in the future "at all city-hosted events recycling bins will be provided, including the Coconut Grove festival, for the first time", and is starting to recycle in some of its buildings.
Bottled water in restaurants is a high-profit item, selling a $1.50 bottle of water for $5-15 each in upscale establishments.
Ultraviolet radiation is increasingly popular as a replacement for chlorine as a primary water disinfectant, and believed to be especially effective against e coli and coliform bacteria. Maimi-Dade and Broward water do not go thru that process however, because it is expensive and somewhat controversial. Acquafina does use UV technology, altho Dasani does not.
Pepsi touts its Acquafina as a GREEN product, claiming that a partnership has converted "recycled Acquafina bottle into 100,000 fleec lined jackets for needy kids". To be fair, Coke contributes to some 70 public water projects around the world in 40 countries, is constructing the worlds largest plastic bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and bought 142 hybrid delivery trucks, 20 of which debuted in Miami last month.
Acquafina now has a label that says "public water source' on it, although the water bottlers maintain that people already know where it comes from. Some probably do know that, but its probably about the same percentage that know that Evian is naive spelled backward.
New Times, August 14, 2008.