Ten Bucks A Gallon…
You think the price of gas is expensive? You haven’t been doing your math.
So let me help.
The other day—I stopped at my local gas station to fill up—and because I was thirsty decided to grab a bottle of water.
As I gazed at the bright orange price tag—I began to do some calculations…. I was paying $1.59 for 20 ounces of water. Now there’s 128 ounces in a gallon. 20 goes into 128 exactly 6.4 times. Multiply 6.4 by 1.59 and I was paying a whopping $10.17 a GALLON for what is essentially tap water.
(In the interest of full disclosure I actually had to do the math on a piece of scrap paper I found in the car—-I’m not smart enough to do all that in my head)
It’s no secret we’re in a drought here in North Carolina…And right here on this blog, I posted an updated list of water conservation tips culled from various sources.
One of those tips advised folks to drink more bottled water—to save our local water supplies.
But, I never stopped to think of the cost.
$10.17 A GALLON !!!
It’s yet another hidden cost of the drought—a drought that many of our municipal leaders were slow in reacting to.
There’s no sense in railing about that issue any more—-because—like water that’s evaporated—we can’t change what happened…
BUT, we can change what WILL happen.
Municipal leaders have to change the way they react to future droughts. They have to enact wiser water use policies—and do more to insure there are permanent conservation measures in place.
Some communities are beginning to see that’s what needs be done—and they are moving in that direction. But, we need to be doing it all across the state—because groundwater doesn’t respect municipal boundries.
We must all realize—water is a finite resource…
Of course— there is ONE upside to the cost of bottled water.
At the price I’m paying right now—it makes 3-dollar-a-gallon gas look like a bargain!
—Steve
Link hereto the story Steve covered today on NBC-17
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Excellent point on the $10+/gallon water front.
On top of that, the production of the plastic bottles also requires the use of oil. The Earth Policy Institute cites on its Web site that data shows “The amount of crude oil going into plastic water bottles in the United States each year may now exceed 10 million barrels.”
That’s a lot of oil. No wonder the price of a bottle of water is going up.