bottled water is it a con?

There's a natural spring on Mounts Bay road about a hundred meters east of the old swan brewery. It's the same spring that the early settlers got water from. Lots of people used to fill up bottles there every morning and made great claims regarding it's health giving benefits,. sooo the health dept thought they better do a few checks on it. Apparently it was heavily contaminated with all sorts of fertilisers, chemicals herbicides, insecticides and probably homicides from the gardens in Kings Park just above it.
The number of people filling up dropped off a little but I still see them filling up there. You might as well join them.

Untreated spring water is no different from untreated bore water that you pump up and splash on your garden. The fact that it bubbles up from the ground by itself does not mean it is endowed with any magical health giving properties.
And my advice on drinking bore water in any metropolitan area is don't. Unless you boil it first. It has the accumulation of 100 years of septic tank outputs in it.

Tap water is fine. If you want to make it finer then boil it first.

If you believe in the evolutionary process, the human species has evolved over millions of years to be in balance with most of the organisms and minerals found in rain, rivers and groundwater.
If you only use distilled water or purified water you end up with an immune system biology which has nothing to do so it often turns around and attacks the system it is meant to protect. i.e. you! It's the same with running around the house spraying hospital grade germicides on everything to give you a house so clean you can eat your dinner off the floor.
We didn't evolve under such sterile conditions and while the advertisements imply that it is to your benefit, it is NOT.

Within reason, stick as close as possible to the conditions in which a species evolved and that is as good as you will get.
So Pweet, put your gob under the tap and drink your fill.

In answer to the question: 'Is bottled water a con ?'

The answer is No. If you buy some bottled water you get a bottle of water.

For it to be a 'con' you must recieve less than it professes to be.

If, for example, Evian siad : Drink Evian and you will become invisible, then it would be a con.

Far as I know they don't (and as far as I know you don't become invisible)

Is it a rip-off - then probably yes. Do you get not much for paying alot - probably yes. Are there much better alternatives - probably yes.

Are bottled water companies conning you - no. They are promoting a product and selling you what they promote. Are you getting value when you purchase - probably not, but end of the day that is your free choice, you are not being conned.

I think the con lies in the fact that people have been pursuaded to buy it in lieu of drinking tap water.

That is why it is such a brilliant con - sure it is only a bottle of water but why the **** do people pay for it?

Do they really ??, or is this just the impression that we all have from their advertising ?

Nowhere can I find that they claim their product is "better" than tap water. Their web site has lots of references to the need to drink water and that water (presumably all water not just evian) is pure and natural and that Evian contains a unique balance of minerals.

Now that is probably all true. The con is probably in that people read that in whatever way they want it to read it. But that is no different to any other product out there for sale.

However, Evian website also has the opening statement "you are never too old to become younger" (quote by Mae West).

If you read this as "drink evian and you will get younger" then may I offer you a small rubber band to put on your wrist that will mean you can balance like an olympic pillow fighter on a greasy log and make you richer as well. I am willing to give this to you for free, just send me $70 post and packing. (and if you do this in the next 7 days I will throw in a couple bottles of my invisibility natural spring water, sprung from my very own adonis like body)

Or Sydney....

Got a mate who is a mega keen fisherman who used to make illegal sorties into Waragamba. ( for those who do not know Sydney's main water supply dam in the Blue Mountains).

He wlaked down the Cox's river one day to find a pile of dead brumbies and cattle that had been shot from a helicopter, all lying in the river bed.

When he got back he phoned the water supply board or whatever it is called and told them about it.

Their response was that he was not supposed to be there.

Whereupon he told them to get ****ed and hung up.

Pretty bl00dy poor planning.....