Why Just the Water business Now?

POU vs bottled water

The bottled water industry is worth £2 billion a year in UK alone. This is unbelievable: we are the lucky ones - we probably have the safest drinking water in the world piped through the mains right into our homes and workplaces - but we still prefer to buy bottled water! This is a 'luxury' that we have been conditioned to regard as a 'right' but in the current economic climate, it's becoming a luxury again as we all want to save money.

Bottled water is an incredible form of recurring revenue for the water industry and it has many disadvantages in expense, health and safety and environmental impact:

• for a water cooler, a 19L bottle of water for a water cooler costs from £3.99; if you use 1000L a year, it costs over £200 every year and this will only go up
  
• from the supermarket, a 1L bottle of water costs ~£0.75; if you use 1000L a year, it costs £750 and this will also only go up in the future
  
• water is used and wasted in the manufacture of the plastic bottles themselves
• water is shipped around the world from places like Fiji by plane, boat, train and truck (what a carbon footprint...)
• unless its clearly labelled 'spring' water then it's probably mains-water that is filtered and bottled so it doesn't taste of chlorine (if it is 'spring' water - there are fewer regulations governing its quality compared to mains water - so undetected contamination is possible in 'spring' water)
• storage is an issue - sitting in sunlight, bacteria and algae love to grow in it!
• it has a limited shelf-life even if stored correctly, again due to all that lovely bacteria and algae
• these huge water cooler bottles are HEAVY... and you certainly don't want to drop one on your toe when it's full!
• expensive servicing costs - they are supposed to sanitised 4 times a year
• recycling all that plastic is NOT going well here in the UK: currently less than 20% waste plastic is recycled in the UK - just think of all that landfill...

There are two answers to saving money: be rid of the luxury by going back to tap water or find a more cost effective way of keeping the 'right' by using a cheaper alternative. The water industry knows this and is developing and marketing Point-of-Use appliances now - we just need to get the message across to the consumer.

Point-of-Use is an appliance plumbed directly into the mains-supplied water to filter tap water in a more hygenic 'closed' system. It advantages are many compared to bottled water:

• cost of water reduced by 100% as POU filters mains-supplied water that consumers are already paying for
• servicing costs are reduced by 50% as sanitisation and filter changes are only necessary twice a year (half as often as bottled water) as its a 'closed' system
• consumers won't run out of POU water as it is always 'on tap'
• no expensive deliveries of water (lower carbon footprint)
• no storage issues of quality and shelf-life as it is available on demand
• no heavy lifting required
• the filters are either 100% biodegradable (carbon cartridge) or 100% recyclable through the supplier

Visit www.justwaternow.com to see how you can save money by paying less for water