Paying vending machine prices, Northlanders spend about $8 a gallon on bottled water -- more than three times the cost of unleaded gasoline.
So why are we buying so much bottled water -- about 56 billion bottles of it in 2004 in the U.S. alone?
That's what Corporate Accountability International was asking at the University of Minnesota Duluth Tuesday when it sponsored a taste test pitting bottled water against Duluth tap water.
Students tried to pick Dasani and AquaFina from Duluth and Minneapolis tap water. It's part of a national campaign by the group to persuade Americans to stop buying bottled water.
Few students identified all four varieties correctly in the taste test. Several got them all wrong.
"I'd drink any of them; they were all good," said UMD junior Alex Flinner, who guessed one out of four correctly. "I don't drink bottled water, so I'm not sure what it tastes like. It didn't taste any different here."
Lori Mattson, a UMD junior, walked up to the taste test holding a bottle of Dasani. She walked away wondering why she had paid for it. She identified only one of four samples and thought Duluth tap water was Dasani.
"I only drink bottled water because I thought tap water was making me sick. But I couldn't taste much difference," Mattson said.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/14322946.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted by Dave at April 12, 2006 12:09 PM