[lbo-talk] bottled water scam exposed

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 15 07:09:11 PDT 2008


I do not know about other countries, but I would drink tap water in Poland - and I have.  It is ok, certain places have high level of minerals in thier tap water, which is causing deposits in pots, but I have never heard of anyone having problems becaosue of drinking tap water.    This is not the case of tropical countries - I heard numerous stories of people getting traveller's sickenss, and I got it myself a few times, so  I use exlcusively bottled water when I go there.  Of course, there is no guarantee, you can get fake bottled water (I heard stories, but I have no way of verifying them), and you can get sick from other sources.  Last time I was in Uganda I got sick from what I suspect was either British Airways food (purchased locally)  or food at a 5-star hotel (cannot tell for sure which.)  In Burkina Faso, a bunch of us got sick from food consumed at a local restaurant - however, none of the Africans who were with us got sick, even though we ate the same food. 

So to sum it up, this whole bottled water bussiness is nothing but pure marketing hype, especially in Europe and North America.  You can ssafely drink tap water in most places, except that many European restaurants will not serve it to you, and instead will bring you overpriced bottled water.  I always demanded tap water in such situations, sometimes it worked sometimes it did not.  I am pretty sure this also holds for Moscow - what do you think people drank there before all that bottled water craze?  If you have concerns over taste, buy a pitcher with Brita filter - it is far more economical than buying bottled water.  Wojtek

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