Water More Expensive Than Beer

As happened recently in Scotland, three supermarket chains in drought-plagued London are now charging more for bottled water than beer, a January 9 This Is London story reported.

At one chain, a pint of beer is being sold for US$1.04, with a bottle of Perrier costing US$1.10, the story reported.

Members of Parliament and the pub industry are criticizing the supermarkets for low beer prices, saying they are encouraging binge drinking, a claim that all three chains refuted, according to the article.

In July it was reported that some supermarkets in Scotland were selling beer cheaper than bottled water, with some popular brands of lager beer selling for as little as 40p (about 74 cents) a can or bottle.

Ian: It's enough to send a man to drink! Really, the bottled water business is perhaps the silliest business on the planet. I remember a statistic on the amount of petroleum used in their manufacture - 1,500,000 tons in the US every year. Awesome! And so ridiculous when the cost of a litre of Jupiter Science Alkaline water is around $0.02 cents.

The World Wildlife Fund has introduced a 'Blueprint For Water'' plan encouraging people to return to drinking tap water. While I fully support their aim, and declare my 'commercial interest' I believe the middle ground is home-filtered water. i've seen and heard enough from the thousands of people who contact me every year with real concerns about the quality of the water delivered to their tap. The whole of Melbourne drinks acid water, the whole of Adelaide suffers intolerably mieralised water, and Perth suffers similarly with excessive high dissolved solids.