Why does bottled water cost more than gasoline?

[Dis]

Something strange is at work here. Could it be people are stupid enough to pay that much for water?

I find it funny people complain so much when gas prices go up 5 cents, but no one compains about the cost they spend on water.

I can get water for free, so that's not a concern for me.

[self biased]

isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[Paddy]

I so know what you mean...

Bottled milk is cheaper than Bottled water in Oz...

all very useless.

[Urban Ranger]

Why? The cost of water is normal, it's just that petrol has been unreasonably cheap.

[Dis]

gasoline is never unreasonably cheap . Think about it, if they were losing money, they would be raising prices.

It's the fact that water is overpriced. plain and simple. The companies know they can get away with charging this much.

There is no way in hell it is cheaper to drill, pipe, transport, refine, transport again gasoline than it is to bottle water and transport it.

[The Mad Monk]

It's the price the market will bear.

In other words, blame your stupid fellow consumers.

[Lancer]

Seven miles south of my little coastal Oregon town is a knobby glen. From the base of two wooded buttes, wooded with great Oregon furs, flows a spring which bubbles slowly from the deep. The pioneers, some now 250 years old, got their water from this pure source. Every three weeks or thereabouts we go up thern and fill every jug we have. We drink it, make coffee out of it, fill the bird bath with it and even boil noodles and make rice with the stuff.

Thank God for Oregon.

It's all true, but for the pioneers, who be dead, but not from the water, from injuns.

[Harovan]

A liter of gasoline: ~ € 1.05
A liter of bottled water: ~ € 0.60..0.75

In the land of SUVs and pickup trucks: maybe.
Here: no.

[Az]

Liter of Gas here: 4.30 NIS.
6x1.5 Litres of Bottled water: 13 NIS -> 1.444 NIS per liter.

not even close.

[Harovan]

Azazel: With avatars disabled, your location field looks ambiguous at the very least.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Liter of gas in Turkey: 1.800.000 Turkish lira (about $1.25)
Liter of water in Turkey: 500.000 Turkish lira (about $0.35)
15 liters of water in a giant bottle, delivered to your home: 2.000.000 Turkish lira (about 9 cents/liter)

So not here either, obviously. One reason for the difference is that other countries are not so gasoline-dependent, and they can therefore tax the hell of of gas with less public outcry and less overall risk to their economies. Another reason is that, in the US -- where tap water is perfectly drinkable -- bottled water is a luxury, whereas in Turkey and many other places, it's a necessity.

edit: I just remembered that some French foreign minister once said, "There's nothing wrong with America that a $2/gallon gasoline tax wouldn't fix." I think there probably tells you everything you need to know about our cheaper gas.

[Lancer]

Though this thread is denigrating into a gas price supository, I'd like to thank this poster for his literary excellence. Nice story!

"Seven miles south of my little coastal Oregon town is a knobby glen. From the base of two wooded buttes, wooded with great Oregon furs, flows a spring which bubbles slowly from the deep. The pioneers, some now 250 years old, got their water from this pure source. Every three weeks or thereabouts we go up thern and fill every jug we have. We drink it, make coffee out of it, fill the bird bath with it and even boil noodles and make rice with the stuff.

Thank God for Oregon.

It's all true, but for the pioneers, who be dead, but not from the water, from injuns."

Again, well done.

[Provost Harrison]

I just use the water out of the tap, it costs a fraction of a penny

[Lancer]

"I just use the water out of the tap, it costs a fraction of a penny"

Ahh, but Provost, 'cost' can be measured in many ways. Water makes up 70% of your body, or more.

"Tap" water...

[Provost Harrison]

I think water makes up more of your body than that, but it is the complex molecules and biochemical system that cost. The chemicals that make up the body are so common they cost pennies.

Tap water, yes, you know, the water out of a tap?