Are we still being conned by the bottled water industry? | 60 Minutes Australia

sometimes you've got to admire their sheer audacity I mean talk about selling ice to Eskimos I'm referring to those cunning folk flogging us all that bottled water think about it you can get perfectly healthy stuff straight from the tap for almost nothing yet suckers like you and me are forking out more than three dollars a liter for the bottled variety double the price of petrol apparently we spent more than half a billion dollars on bottled water last year the question is just what do we think we're buying in those fancy bottles the search for the

most expensive bottled water on the planet takes us to the most wild and remote of places as far from the Madding Crowd as he can get King Island in bastrate sat in the teeth of the Roaring 40s on the runs ceasing an uninterrupted passage around the world are people who don't know the island wouldn't know this but this is where they make wind and rain isn't it yeah that's our production factory right there furthest point is South America 11 000 cases [Music] that's step one oh there you go there you go yeah it's nothing I

could be a water farmer hey it's a very simple business this bit I don't like if you've got a head for Heights ah help me yeah right well it's the most simple operation he collects water straight from the sky onto this very basic roof and calls it Cloud juice it's all done by nature and gravity let's see the product well there's the goal hey we'll be rich it's a gasha it's lovely yeah it's beautiful yeah only 400 bottles a day it looks like just a little bottle of a business but this King Island rainwater is

being shipped to some of the smartest restaurants and shops in Europe and America where it sells for an astonishing 24 a bottle it's one thing to expect people to pay 2.50 for a bottle of water quite another to pay something like twenty four dollars well the places that we're 20 25 a bottle are where you're going to spend two or three hundred dollars on a meal and 50 100 200 on a bottle of wine so I think in comparison to that it's it's fine it's another economy it's for the region absolutely all for someone that

wants to have one night of decadence more expensive than petrol but bottled water is not just for the well to do Australians are guzzling the stuff spending over half a billion dollars every year and ridiculously most of it comes from giant factories in our major cities [Music] so it does beg the question don't you think you're a bit of a mug really probably am yeah Julie Cannon Ashley for wood and Sarah roach of friends who work up a lather in their North Shore Sydney gym they replace all that perspiration with their own favorite Tipple bought

straight from the fridge enjoy the fact that it comes out of the fridge cold so what's your bottled water of choice Mount Franklin what do you know about Mount Franklin where is it Tasmania what's your favorite water pump where does it come from I have no idea I I drink water also because I feel afer than tap water the bottled water what do you think it would be safe with all the um bugs that over the years that have been in the water I don't know it might be just a matter of perception but the

heart of the whole argument is a public belief that somehow or other bottled water is purer and somehow safer than this water that I've just poured from the tap now it's true that tap water does contain a number of chemicals hydrogen peroxide fluoride and chlorine but then again neither is bottled water crystal clear as we found when we tested it in the lab some bottled water turned out to be simply filtered tap water others contained extremely high amounts of bacteria and two leading Brands we tested were found to be tainted with chemical disinfectants and aluminum

so if bottled water is not demonstrably pure and safer than tap water then why do we spend so much money on it [Music] maybe we've just bought into the very slick very clever advertising campaign when bottled water first came out I remember looking in a shop and thought you have got to be kidding they're trying to sell me bottled water I can get that for nothing out of my tap John D founder of the environmental campaign group Planet Arc believes we've fallen for one of the biggest marketing scams of all time for Australians of all

people in the world to be spending half a billion dollars buying 600 million liters of bottled water every year it makes no sense but the simple fact is we've been conned by the bottled water industry and they're laughing all the way to the bank are we really that stupid when we have one of the world's purest Water Supplies on tap most of our reservoirs are so clean John's more than happy to drink the water even before it's treated that's just straight from here and look how clean it is it's fantastic I've looked into this before

and uh and uh came to the conclusion in fact we refine our water and purify it in Australia Way Beyond the requirements of even the most sensitive human gut oh absolutely I mean if you look at the guidelines that go into purifying this water to get it down into your TAP it's world's best practice so Martin can you really not give me a close to where we are and the water story gets even more bemusing oh here we are here's some Peach flower tea tree I'm in the Wilds of the New South Wales Bush let's

have a look at the sacred River with buckling Baron Martin chalk owner of balance water can we try it I know you treat the water but let's try it and this is the source of his biggest salad Women's Water Yes you heard it water especially designed for women this is one of the ones we use in our balance for women I mean it's beautiful gentle Little Flower so this is the plant for the water for women yeah but this is a women's Business Seafood women's business I feel uneasy even being here by adding native flowers

to the mix mutton also manages to flog water for kids water for travelers and even water to calm you down and what will this do for you it will help with calming you de-stressing emotional stability so you won't stew and ruminate over issues as as much as I've had I've had a liter of it and it's not making me any less skeptical well I was gonna say Charles I thought the wine industry had the mortgage on but it looks like the water people have got us got us covered on that one [Music] water is no

longer just water anymore in Australia alone we're faced with a bewildering choice of more than a thousand brains so we asked one of the most Discerning palettes in the country wine taster Nick Ryan if any of them were worth their often exorbitant price tag shall we start with a Pellegrino why not send Pellegrino my notes told me that it is brilliant lacking in any distracting color with a fairly dense pearlage of reasonably fine bubbles in abundance and this is gathered harvested rainwater this seems a little finer to me that seems a little a little um

Fuller on the palate that water but this seems to have yes now a little sort of sharpness and fineness through it a real Christmas now you put that idea into my head suggestions whether you want to go at me paying eight bucks a bottle ten bucks a bottle when you could probably get a half decent bottle of wine for that sort of money I think I know why I'd rather put my money but and I'd you know stick to the tap taste an expense aside there's another very big question mark over bottled water producing shipping

and storing those millions of plastic bottles creates one giant carbon footprint every time we are buying bottled water no matter what the myth or the story that's attached to it the fact is there is a major environmental impact associated with that bottled water and seventy percent of the bottles we drink each year weighing a massive 75 000 tons end up in landfill they have clear illustration of the relative price of water and petrol eh absolutely yes and here's something equally as silly because for every product you make you need some oil don't you absolutely how

much oil is a question you demonstrated hold that up okay tell me when I decant enough oil yes into this to be the amount of oil required to make one bottle of water keep going more yeah absolutely oh you're joking no more I would have thought it would have covered the bottom okay stop that I can't believe it that much oil to put that much water in the same bottle John D says a simple solution to such a wanton waste of energy is to take tap water back to the people he Champions the return of

the old-fashioned Butler delivering tap water filtered and free I'm a new man and my life has changed forever so how much of the water bottle is going to hate this I don't think they'd like it somehow because every time people are using these it's less bottled water that they're buying and we estimate that these all the you know the bubbles in this Corso will stop the usage of up to 200 000 bottles of water every single year this is fine by me would you like to do a taste test after dinner now that's just perfect

and when given the choice even the most hardened of bottled water addicts can be won over this is filtered tap water freely available in your gym you don't need to pay for it try that I actually prefer the taste of this one it tastes different but it's just as good I should probably be in the tap water so are you finally all cured of this addiction to bottled water [Laughter] but it seems tap water campaigners still have a long way to go to match the marketing Genius of the bottled water industry we could go on

all day but this is actually it doesn't say it's for us it's enhanced water for Animals somehow they've even got us lapping up water for the doggy bowl at four dollars a bottle does your animal get scared in storms distressed when you leave them get frightened around strangers show aggressive behavior etc etc calm is a premium spring water with gently infused Australian flower essences should take the bark out of it oh really oh it's not one of those cocked its leg over it it is a bit doggy isn't it [Music] at the end of the

day it's all marketing it's all at PR it's all Spin and its aim is to extract money out of your pocket and to basically maximize profits out of your gullibility and that's one thing Australians need to look at is stop being gullible when it comes to bottled water you have great tap water drink it hello I'm Tara Brown thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia subscribe to our Channel now for brand new stories and exclusive Clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on 9now.com and the

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