By Dan Gray, Board Member, Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, Adventures Coordinator, Urban Ecology Center & Member, Great Waters Group.

When last at the grocery store I glanced at some prices for bottled water. One could buy 20 ounces of cold water from Dasani for $1.29. In the bottled water aisle, one could purchase a gallon of “Infant Drinking Water” (there was no explanatory information on the label), for $0.70. For that price you get some water and a plastic container.

According to our Milwaukee Water Works bill, we are charged $1.18 per Ccf (cubic hundred feet) of water. One Ccf is 748 gallons. One dollar provides us with 128 gallons of water and the treatment of that water after we have used it. That works out to $0.0078 per gallon, or about ¾ of a cent.

128 gallons of ice cold Dasani would run you $1056.77 (or $8.26 a gallon). You could acquire 128 gallons of “Infant Drinking Water” for $89.60. In addition to the water, you would have 819 blue plastic Dasani bottles, or 128 empty gallon jugs, to dispose of.

The contents of bottled water are not tightly regulated. In some cases, bottled water is the same as tap water, or has only been additionally filtered. The Milwaukee Water Works reports annually on the quality of the water they treat and the levels of contaminants found in the water. Further details can be found on their website https://water.mpw.net.

Follow the link below to read more at the Sierra Club - Great Waters Group website: