No, we have a Pur on-tap filter that filters our tap water as soon as it comes out of the faucet. We use that to fill up our Brita pitcher which we stick in the fridge, so the water we drink goes through 2 filters and is quite good. I read recently that fancy restaurants in the San Franciso area have started doing twice-filtered water instead of bottled water. I should have patented the idea when I had the chance.

fortunatly im lucky. i live in Christchurch - New Zealand and we have the cleanst naturalst water in anywhere i know. i dont filter our water or anything and it it peferct straight from a tap

Here a small bottle of OJ costs about $1.39 and those small sodas have gone up to $1.59 I do not pay these prices but I do not have any problem paying $1.00 for some water after all it is what keeps us alive. Do you know how many people complain to me about paying $1.00 for soda when they probably have no problem paying the high prices of booze and cigarette? !

rarely. if i'm somewhere where i can't drink the tap water, i'll get a filter for it. i do that not so much because of the cost (although that is an added bonus), but because those little plasic water bottles never fully degrade. ever. i try to use plasic as little as i try to be environmentally aware.

I never buy water bottles, I have a water purifier connected to the tap and that makes it taste fine. If I need it on the go, I just put it in a water bottle.

Im fortunate, in Scotland the water is lovely to drink, but i think its terrible that anyone should be expected to pay for bottled water, it should be free to anyone who wants it.

It very much depends upon where you live. When I lived in England we never bought bottled water because the water at the tap (faucet) came directly from the water company. Now that I live where I do our water is only pumped from the water company 4 days a week and it's stored in a cistern, so we use bottled water for cold drinks and ice. We use tap water for cooking and hot drinks, though. We pay a little more than €1 for 5 litres.

I'm in the UK and tap water tastes exactly the same as bottled. A few years back the Coca-Cola Schweppes factory was fined for taking water out of the River Cray and sticking it in a bottle and trying to sell it. They called it '(something)Springs). The cheapest bottled water you can buy over here is from Tesco (don't you just love 'em) at 16p for 2 litres. The only downside is the shelf life is not as long as some of the others.

I usually drink from gallons of water we buy at the store. Our water tastes a little bit like chlorine, and when I lived in southern Missouri, the water smelled like sulfur, which was off-putting. I find it's a lot cheaper to buy the gallons than water bottles. I don't know if it's the packaging that makes water bottles so expensive compared to the jugs. I also don't know if bottled water is a rip off because I don't know which company uses what process of purification and how much it costs to bring it to the store. Stores charge you much more than the products are worth so they can turn a profit for providing it. I do prefer the taste of cheap bottled water to the expensive ones because there's a sweetish aftertaste to the ones that cost more. It is weird how soda is about the same price, but the cola companies use inferior ingredients to make their money. (They also own some of the bottled water brands.) I wouldn't be surprised to find the same water (from the same place, purified the same way) sold under two different labels, one of them being very expensive. I am jealous of all the people in other countries who say they have great tap water. I wouldn't like to drink water straight from the source if it came from North America because of all the pollutants. Later, the chemicals get added so it doesn't taste the way it should. I have to say, I lived about 40 miles south of my current home, and the tap water was really good. It was a waste to buy bottled water. I just bought some once and then washed and reused the bottles.

i try to avoid bottled water, becuase the bottles are usually made of plastic and there's an obscene plastic pollution in the world. if i remember correctly, somewhere around 90% of the pollution in the oceans is from plastic. even if you recycle it, it has to be melted down which releases dioxins into the air. anyway, to answer your questions: i don't usually buy bottled water and i don't think it's a ripoff.

If you buy a high grade water filter, your pure water cost will drop to a few cents per gallon. and you will be getting good pure water.

...the bottle....

Don't buy it then.

The brand name too.

Apparently, people are willing to pay it, so that's what they charge.

Water, while far from the most abundant resource on Earth, is indeed plentiful. Clean, drinkable water, not so much. Most of it is lousy with salt or urine or pollution. In the end it is all a matter of energy. It takes a lot of energy to get the water into the form in which we need it. And that energy has to some from somewhere.

capitalism lol. people buy it, so someone's going to sell it to you in a different form even if you can get quality water out of your tap.

Transport, advertising, bottling, profit.

Becuase we have been duped by the marketing men flogging lifestyle in order to sell their product. I know people who only drink 'evian' etc...and they really are shallow, ridiculous individuals. I personally would rather not drink water that has been sitting in plastic bottles for anything up to 5 years

Your paying for the bottle, not the contents. People try to advertise their water as being the purist when in fact it's pretty much the same as the next, cheaper brand. Oh, & even though water is abundant, it doesn't mean that we wont eventually run out of the stuff that's drinkable. Global warming will play a part in that.

Probably because we the consumers are paying that price. If nobody purchased bottle water for a short period of time, I believe the prices would come down. I don’t buy it anymore, I use the filtered water from the kitchen faucet, probably same as what the filtered water you pay a dollar for.

Abundant, but not always drinkable. Add quality control, packaging, wages, advertising, retail mark-up, transport, storage and all the overheads.

Well, I live in California and we're at such a dangerous drought level that a lot of farmer aren't able to grow as much crop because of the water shortage. After almost the longest drought in California history happened earlier this year, a storm came which was really nice and comforting. But this whole week has been nothing but sun and heat. All in all, there's barely enough jobs for everyone to even be able to pay more than a dollar for a bottle of water. And there's barely enough water for us to drink. Oh, what a world.

The fact is that if money can be made from anything then it will be, its all about greed I guess

The water is not what you are paying for. Bottled from a reputable source has been filtered, and bottled, so you are paying for all the overhead, as listed in a previous answer.

Because it's a great big hoax! Evian Spelled Backward is Naive http://hubpages.com/hub/Evian-Spelled-Backward-is-Nave

Filter when I can. Better for the planet :o) +5

I use a water filter (Brita). Actually I use 3 of them. One upstairs, one downstairs, one at work.

Neither... straight out of the tap! - I guess the water must be not so good in the US?

Most of the time I just use unfiltered tap water. Sometime I will use our brita pitcher.

Water filter. Most of your bottled water is tap water anyway.

I buy bottled water more than almost anything else.

I used to use bottled water, but these days trying to save money I use tap

I don't drink either one. Where I live happens to have the purest of water. Our water is bottled and sold all around the world. +5

Neither, our water is very good here!

None of the above, unless I am visiting abroad then I tend to buy bottled water for microbial infection avoiding reasons. I live in Manchester, UK and our tap water is channeled in via an aqueduct system direct from the Peak District which is almost as high quality as fresh spring water. Given this it would be pointless to spend money and further energy to buy bottled or use a filter system as it has already been filtered. If I lived in London however, I would definitetly invest in a water filtration system. That water has been recycled on average 7 times before it reaches someones tap from the reservoir, gross.

here in Australia, many people drink water right from taps. but there are still many people who use a filter(Brita those are so coooooooooooool. love them~

Neither. Our city water is treated to assure purity and fluoride is added to assure the youth of strong and cavity teeth. We will use a bottle to transport our tap water for convenience when we are out and about. But, we do not give into the hype and false advertising of the water merchants.

I never sweat the small stuff. I have no reason to suspect my tap water is to be concerned about...and that's what I use to make the "rocks" for Stoli...although, now that I think about it, it refrigerator filtered before it gets to the ice maker. Oh, well! :-) +5

I don't do either. I drink the water from our well. It's clean and tasty.

I don't mind paying $1.00 for water as I drink very little soda and rarely juice. Anyway the weather here in Texas is extremely hot so water is the best thing you can buy for a $1 as coke will not relieve the thirst.