Bullshit

One of my favorite TV shows is Penn & Teller’s Bullshit on Showtime (we’re too cheap to get premium cable and often resort to alternate ways of getting our hands on this stuff). My roommate Jeff has become a big fan of the show (with some reservations, some of which will be revealed in the near future), and was especially motivated by the Bottled Water Bullshit episode to write a 2000 word blog entry on the subject. Jeff breaks his full-throttle bullshit assault on me, my bottled water consumption habits, and the American way into 4 major points. So let’s debunk Jeff’s septic tank of bullshit one sip at a time:

The taste:
I hate water. With so many great beverages [especially beer] available downstairs at our deli, life’s too short to drink plain water. I also know that drinking at least 2 liters of pure water a day is healthy habit. So along with substituting salads for gyros at lunchtime, I’ve also been trying to get into the habit of drinking water. I tried many brands of bottled water which, I admit, didn’t taste as good as what comes out of our tap – until I discovered Fiji, and that’s what I’ve stuck with ever since. In my opinion it is the only water worth bottling. Fiji passed Jeff’s pathetic little blind test, as I was quickly able to distinguish its refreshing goodness from the metallic chlorine scent of our tap water (which I still prefer to the taste of any other bottled water). Unfortunately I’ve been cursed with a fine sense of taste and often envy the limited dynamic range of Jeff’s taste buds (which ranges from tasty to nasty-but-edible). He also thinks that all wine tastes the same and considers a can of beans and a spoon of frosting to be a balanced meal.

The cost:
Every month I consume between $300 and $600 worth of food (depending on how much sushi I eat) and between $100 and $300 worth of beverages (depending on the number of nights I get plastered). Out of that, my consumption of Fiji is at a steady $40/month at most. However, it is about one third of my total ingested nourishment (by weight and/or volume). So even at $2.50 per 1.5L bottle, it is still the cheapest thing I consume.

Health:
Even if Fiji has a higher concentration of arsenic than the Cleveland water supply, the web page Jeff quotes had no mention of the compared concentrations of several dozen other contaminants usually found in municipal water distribution systems. I’m willing to bet that the Fiji (islands) ecosystem has a little less carbon tetrachloride than the tri-state area reservoirs, not to mention dozens of other industrial byproducts. And even if NYC tap water is relatively clean compared to others around the world, the pipes in our building have been in service for a century longer than the ones in Fiji which were installed about a decade ago and are used to bottle the stuff I drink. Our pipes probably still have sediment from the water that flowed through them back when NYC water was dirtier than in Mexico City.

Energy and environment:
Based on stats published by the EPA1 an average cargo vessel consumes 0.002 gallons of fuel per cargo ton-mile. Considering that the Fiji islands are 7941 miles away and my bottle of water weighs about 2lbs, the fuel spent on delivering the bottle half way around the world is about 0.0159 gallons. Trucks consume on average 0.017 gallons per cargo ton-mile, so assuming that the Jersey City port is about 20 miles away, this leg of the trip will eat up another 0.00036 gallons for a total of 0.0162 gallons. At $2.50 for a gallon of diesel at an average gas station, the entire trip from Fiji to my doorstep costs around $0.04 (which I admit is much lower than I estimated). Even if all these estimates are way off, the fuel cost can be safely assumed to be under 10 cents for each bottle (even if you include the petroleum required to produce the actual bottle). Jeff’s dad burns more gas (as well as produces more pollution and greenhouse gases) with his Honda Accord in the time it takes him to get to the first stop sign on his way to work.

So if not for the fuel, why is the water so expensive? Because of the number of people that are involved in its distribution – from the Fijians working at the bottling plant to the Indians that sell it at our deli. (The water can still be considered “untouched by man” because it is bottled at the source.) And thanks to economies of scale and the tremendous multiplier effect of the efficient American market system, my small contribution goes a long way toward raising our standard of living and strengthening our economy. This leads me to another consideration which Jeff has completely overlooked – psychological. I'm proud to live in a society where, in spite of being a relatively unproductive participant, I'm still able to afford such a seemingly unimaginable, but surprisingly affordable, luxury as a sip of the cleanest water on earth sourced from the most remote part of the planet.

In short, I drink Fiji because I can.

1 Reference: EPA report