Thought of the Day

Socialism and the blind pursuit of equality breeds mediocrity. Surely a government should aim to provide equality of opportunity rather the equality of outcome.

Bottled Water Tax

I stumbled across an interesting blog posting today on sustainablog.org discussing a proposed new 'Green' tax Chicago is attempting to introduce this year. The basics of this tax are rather simple and I would say an obvious way to tackle this most wasteful of western habits, the massive amount of bottled water we drink. And this simple tax? 5 cents per bottle.


The modern obsession with bottled water is not only an obvious disaster for the environment but also one of the great triumphs of marketing over common sense. For instance take the two American bottled waters Pepsi's Aquafina and Coca-Cola's Dasani which in the States sell for about $1 a 20 fluid oz bottle which equates to about 5 cents per fluid oz. Remember these two waters are basically filtered tap water. Now compare that to the price of petrol last year in the States which was around $3 a gallon or about 2 cent per fluid oz. Really how can filter tap water cost more the petrol?!? So unsurprisingly the bottled water manufacturers are up in arms over this tax. Anyway the blog is worth a read and remember if you want a drink of water that is what the tap is for.


Thank you to chrisbaskind.greenoptions.com for the facts and figures of Petrol and water prices.