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Bottled water is a scam. Most of the stuff comes from water hoses. I'm sure the stuff they had at google was laced with tasty minerals and went through purifica

• ChuckMcM 15y ago
  Yes and no. My understanding that most bottled water is re-packaged tap water which is sold at a markup. A number of people miss the functional aspect of bottled water which is that you are going from point a to point b and you want to drink something on the way. As it turns out, the data collected supported the hypothesis that a significant fraction of the bottled water drinkers were of this category (not drinking it because it was 'better' but drinking it because it was water convieniently packaged for transport in a single serving). The result was that removing bottled water simply lead to substitution of other beverages which were not 'water' but were convieniently packaged. A lot of folks suggested carrying around a drinking bottle or mug so that you could refill it at various points. And, giving free water bottles to people, that did meet some of the need (not sure how widely that program was tried). A proposed solution that was never even tried was to have Google bottle its own water on site (very eco, very doable) and stock that. This would have satisfied just about everyone except it didn't pass the 'saves money' test, which was, ultimately the basis for all of the changes. And it is always the responsibility of management to manage their costs effectively. Generally the debate was around the true cost vs the ledger (dollars and cents) effect.