Abby Gerrits
Mr. Reuter
Econ
10/12/15
Bottled Water
Not everyone realizes how important and how much of a critical component in our nation’s economy bottled water is. We never really look at bottled water in an economic standpoint. So much money goes towards bottled water and we would never have thought about that. It costs up to 1,900 times more than tap water. Most of the time bottled water is just as clean as tap water because both come from the same municipality sources. The production and transportation uses tons of different resources. The bottles are made from oil and it takes 714 million gallons of oil per year to make the bottles for US consumers.
Bottled water is the second largest commercial beverage in the United States, being right in front of milk and beer. About eighty million bottles of water are consumed every day, just in America. Imagine how many are consumed around the world. By having this manufacture in our country, it not only creates many jobs, it also contributes a lot to the economy. Things like agriculture, manufacturing, construction, transportation and many other businesses rely on bottled water industry. There are over 140,000 people employed in this industry which can help the poverty rates and unemployment rates decrease because it has given many people jobs. In 2013, the bottled water industry was a big part of the US economy because it accounted for around $102.3 billion in output.
The demand of bottled water appears to continue to rise. If history is reflected in the future, the demand will keep rising and the supply should continue to go with it. With the evolution of the bottle water industry, the free market has provided people to create all different kinds of water such as, vitamin water, flavored water, sparkling water etc. Since we live in a free market society, over the last 10 years competitors and suppliers have been able to enter the business by creating all different kinds of water. The more people that are competing for the business, drive cost down and improve the supply. There are points and time where bottled water is very important, for example a natural disaster. Over the years, the bottled water industry has provided millions of bottles supplied to disaster relief.
In conclusion the recent history of the water bottle industry has gone through much evolution. It will be interesting to see what the next couple year evolve too.
"Bottled Water: An Economic Perspective - Population Growth - Human Rights, the Economy, and the Environment." Population Growth Human Rights the Economy and the Environment Bottled Water An Economic Perspective Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Bottled Water." The Business of. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Bottled Water Matters." Economics. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Bottled Water." Is an Important Component of Hurricane Season Preparedness. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
I really like the topic you chose because it is really different than everyone elses. I myself prefer bottled water rather than tap water just because I like the taste of bottled water better. It is interesting to see where bottled water had started and where it is going to continue to go.
ReplyDeleteWater is a very important things in our lives and I think we take that for granted. A lot of people just to make more than bottle water and never drink some of it. This can effect the economy by us being wasteful.
ReplyDeleteI found this topic really interesting because bottled water is such a big, but overlooked industry. Everywhere you go, you see people with bottled water, clearly indicating that water is in very high demand. However, as you mentioned, bottled water is so much more expensive than normal tap water. And I know that some environmentalists have been encouraging people to drink tap water out of reusable water bottles to minimize that amount of garbage in landfills. I wonder how this will affect the demand of bottled water in the future. The demand may decrease as people start to realize the importance of reusing water bottles and not buy as much bottled water. That also may result in some bottled water companies losing a lot of money and possibly even going out of business. In all, I thought this was a very informative article and it raised a lot of questions about the future of bottled water.
ReplyDeleteInteresting topic you chose. I was surprised to find out that bottled water was the 2nd largest beverage in America, I would have expected milk to be ahead of bottled water, especially considering that there are far cheaper alternatives. I think it would be interesting to see the demand curve for city water during the time when bottled water was introduced, or when its popularity took off.
ReplyDelete