Why does bottled water cost more than gasoline?

Dis · October 24, 2003, 02:54

Something strange is at work here. Could it be people are stupid enough to pay that much for water?

I find it funny people complain so much when gas prices go up 5 cents, but no one compains about the cost they spend on water.

I can get water for free, so that's not a concern for me.

self biased · October 24, 2003, 02:58

isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Paddy · October 24, 2003, 02:59

I so know what you mean...

Bottled milk is cheaper than Bottled water in Oz...

all very useless.

Urban Ranger · October 24, 2003, 03:06

Why? The cost of water is normal, it's just that petrol has been unreasonably cheap.

Dis · October 24, 2003, 03:15

gasoline is never unreasonably cheap

. Think about it, if they were losing money, they would be raising prices.

It's the fact that water is overpriced. plain and simple. The companies know they can get away with charging this much.

There is no way in hell it is cheaper to drill, pipe, transport, refine, transport again gasoline than it is to bottle water and transport it.

The Mad Monk · October 24, 2003, 03:19

It's the price the market will bear.

In other words, blame your stupid fellow consumers.

Lancer · October 24, 2003, 03:23

Seven miles south of my little coastal Oregon town is a knobby glen. From the base of two wooded buttes, wooded with great Oregon furs, flows a spring which bubbles slowly from the deep. The pioneers, some now 250 years old, got their water from this pure source. Every three weeks or thereabouts we go up thern and fill every jug we have. We drink it, make coffee out of it, fill the bird bath with it and even boil noodles and make rice with the stuff.

Thank God for Oregon.

It's all true, but for the pioneers, who be dead, but not from the water, from injuns.

Harovan · October 24, 2003, 03:35

A liter of gasoline: ~ € 1.05
A liter of bottled water: ~ € 0.60..0.75

In the land of SUVs and pickup trucks: maybe.
Here: no.

Az · October 24, 2003, 03:50

Liter of Gas here: 4.30 NIS.
6x1.5 Litres of Bottled water: 13 NIS -> 1.444 NIS per liter.

not even close.

Harovan · October 24, 2003, 04:10

Azazel: With avatars disabled, your location field looks ambiguous at the very least.

Rufus T. Firefly · October 24, 2003, 04:33

Liter of gas in Turkey: 1.800.000 Turkish lira (about $1.25)
Liter of water in Turkey: 500.000 Turkish lira (about $0.35)
15 liters of water in a giant bottle, delivered to your home: 2.000.000 Turkish lira (about 9 cents/liter)

So not here either, obviously. One reason for the difference is that other countries are not so gasoline-dependent, and they can therefore tax the hell of of gas with less public outcry and less overall risk to their economies. Another reason is that, in the US -- where tap water is perfectly drinkable -- bottled water is a luxury, whereas in Turkey and many other places, it's a necessity.

edit: I just remembered that some French foreign minister once said, "There's nothing wrong with America that a $2/gallon gasoline tax wouldn't fix." I think there probably tells you everything you need to know about our cheaper gas.

Lancer · October 24, 2003, 04:42

Though this thread is denigrating into a gas price supository, I'd like to thank this poster for his literary excellence. Nice story!

"Seven miles south of my little coastal Oregon town is a knobby glen. From the base of two wooded buttes, wooded with great Oregon furs, flows a spring which bubbles slowly from the deep. The pioneers, some now 250 years old, got their water from this pure source. Every three weeks or thereabouts we go up thern and fill every jug we have. We drink it, make coffee out of it, fill the bird bath with it and even boil noodles and make rice with the stuff.

Thank God for Oregon.

It's all true, but for the pioneers, who be dead, but not from the water, from injuns."

Again, well done.

Provost Harrison · October 24, 2003, 04:47

I just use the water out of the tap, it costs a fraction of a penny

Lancer · October 24, 2003, 04:58

"I just use the water out of the tap, it costs a fraction of a penny"

Ahh, but Provost, 'cost' can be measured in many ways. Water makes up 70% of your body, or more.

"Tap" water...

Provost Harrison · October 24, 2003, 05:07

I think water makes up more of your body than that, but it is the complex molecules and biochemical system that cost. The chemicals that make up the body are so common they cost pennies.

Tap water, yes, you know, the water out of a tap?

Lancer · October 24, 2003, 05:18

"Tap water, yes, you know, the water out of a tap?"

Yes, thanks.

My point is it's GOVERNMENT water...

Provost, I'm somewhat drunk and screwing around.

Regrets, salutations...

Pekka · October 24, 2003, 05:19

I don't know how in earth we have had our bottled water here to actually profit.. we have clean water, you can drink it everywhere and it tastes good and you don't get sick from it. We have so much water, extra water that it exceeds 11 times of our needs of it. And people still buy bottled water. Why? It tastes the same you get from tap, our water is clean.

Lancer · October 24, 2003, 05:24

Alot of bottled water comes from a town tap. You could do alot worse than water from my town. They pump it from under the sand dunes. Tghing is, the built a golf course on top of the dunes anf the fertilizers are leaching through imo. The water leaves deposits on glass when it drys, which it never used to. I feel better getting my water from the spring south of town, and i don't trust the tap anymore.

Az · October 24, 2003, 05:26

Answer: stupid people.

Hell, even if you don't like tap water ( it happens sometimes here) , You can put a goddamn purifier at a fraction of the cost. I, personally, drink tap water.... except the last couple of days that the water utility people went on strike, so we didn't know if they fix stuff, so we went bottled.

Adagio · October 24, 2003, 05:43

Bottled water? Why even use that... it's quite impossible to do the dishwashing by only using bottled water

... you mean you DRINK water

Who would ever drink such... stuff... unless absolutely neccesary

CerberusIV · October 24, 2003, 05:47

Someone once told me that when you burn a gallon of gasoline in a car engine you actually get more than a gallon of water out of the exhaust as vapour. I don't know if this is true, the idea that there is more water in gasoline than there is in water sounds weird.

The water from the tap in my part of the UK is OK. It is a bit variable depending on whether it came from a reservoir or a borehole so we filter it but buying bottled water is a crazy waste of money - unless they insist on putting fluoride in your tap water.

Az · October 24, 2003, 05:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
A liter of gasoline: ~ € 1.05
A liter of bottled water: ~ € 0.60..0.75

In the land of SUVs and pickup trucks: maybe.
Here: no.

Why the **** is everything so goddamn expensive in Europe?

Pekka · October 24, 2003, 05:50

Sir Ralph, our gas prices are about the same. Let's be angry together

.

Spiffor · October 24, 2003, 06:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
Why the **** is everything so goddamn expensive in Europe?

Because we aren't an impoverished country

Az · October 24, 2003, 06:05

really? I thought we were experiencing similar "growth" rates.

Spiffor · October 24, 2003, 06:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
really? I thought we were experiencing similar "growth" rates.

But in our case, that's because we have grown already

Az · October 24, 2003, 06:17

Oh really? We're pretty grown, too!

Spiffor · October 24, 2003, 06:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
Oh really? We're pretty grown, too!

You're as grown as the US penis in the region can be

Provost Harrison · October 24, 2003, 06:34

Quote:

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Someone once told me that when you burn a gallon of gasoline in a car engine you actually get more than a gallon of water out of the exhaust as vapour. I don't know if this is true, the idea that there is more water in gasoline than there is in water sounds weird.

Sounds about right actually, bear in mind that there is a fair amount of oxygen going into that as well. I will do an approximate adding up for octane...

C8H18+12.5O2 ---> 8CO2 + 9H2O

Now the molecular mass of octane is 8*12+18=114 and water is 18...so 9 molecules of water have a mass of 162...so for every 114g of octane you burn you will release 162g of water, but remember, that mass isn't coming from nowhere, you are also getting out 352g of CO2, but putting in 400g of oxygen too.

All approximate, but you get the point.

Harovan · October 24, 2003, 06:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
Why the **** is everything so goddamn expensive in Europe?

Well... the price of the gasoline is ~85% made out of taxes (petroleum tax and VAT) and the water I mentioned is French, out of the Vogesen mountains, my wife prefers it. Perhaps we should invade France to make it cheaper?

We clearly should!

. It's been a long time already, way overdue.