What if someone told you

That drinking bottled water was more wasteful than driving a huge Hummer SUV?

Our age is one of dire consequences. No longer can we afford to waste our precious resources on frivolous luxuries; a point not lost on a friend of a friend’s during a recent night out. "God damn c*****ckers", he said as he spit on every SUV parked on the side of the road. Of course living in Isla Vista, the student ghetto adjacent to the University of California, Santa Barbara populated by a rather motley assortment of privileged rich kids, there were plenty of "daddy bought" luxury SUVs for him to unleash his salival wrath upon. I counted something like 25 in one block alone (we have really long blocks). I know what you’re asking: How did he complete this awesome feat whilst remaining hydrated? Easy! After every 5 or so SUVs he took a swig off his store bought bottled water. Age of consequences Indeed...
Not only was this guy one of the most vigorous efficiency warriors I’ve ever witnessed, he was also a definitive model of The New American Water Cycle. What is The New American Water Cycle? The New American Water Cycle is a seven step cycle much like the water cycle you probably read about in school:

* The Jesuit's diary :: ::
*

1. An average American mammal becomes thirsty and seeks water.

2. Perfectly sanitary Municipal water "tastes funny" and is deemed unsuitable for consumption.

3. Luckily, "Aquafina" or other such businesses have taken it upon themselves to bottle the Municipal water of another city. This bottling process consumes wealth and generates pollutants including co2.

4. Knowing full well that there billions of oppressed American mammals across the country "Aquafina" or other such businesses take it upon themselves to ship these bottles of water across the country, hoping that the average American mammal will be willing to pony up $1 for the same water they can get free in their own kitchen, if only it were just a little more convenient and a lot more wasteful to do so.

5. Success! The Average American mammal buys in, swearing off tap water forever!

6. All the waste and co2 generated by this exorbitant process causes "Global Warming", causing temperatures across the world to Rise. Oh no!

7. Sensing the hotter climate, the Average American mammal becomes even thirstier, craving even more water, and the cycle continues... infinitely!

Begin Rant:

They very fact that you can commercialize something as basic and abundant as water is alarming enough, the fact that so many of those who buy in are both completely unaware of the harm they’re doing while at the same time quick to chastise others for not thinking about the consequences of their actions is even more so. The only real differences between driving an SUV and regularly drinking bottled water are that SUVs are less wasteful, and the inefficiency of bottled water hasn’t to my knowledge been regularly attacked in the mainstream conscience. Think about it, SUV’s may be gas guzzlers but at least that gets you more space, rugged off road capability, and arguably better safety. Sure, most people don’t need all that crap, but at least they have it should they need it. When you drink bottled water you are participating in one of the most wasteful processes known to humanity and getting absolutely nothing in return.
Just how wasteful is drinking bottled water? In the age of Wikipedia you really have no excuse to not know. here are some of the stats:

...the process of making the plastic for the water bottles consumed in the U.S. uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year.

As opposed to roughly 0 barrels if you would just drink it from the friggin tap.

Bottling water created more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 in 2006. This corresponds to about 0.1% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

As opposed to roughly 0% if you would just drink it from the friggin tap.

250g (0.00025 tons) of CO2 are released for each bottle of FIJI Water imported to the United States. This includes 93g for manufacturing a bottle in China, 4g for transporting an empty bottle to Fiji, and 153g for shipping a full bottle to the United States. [8]
Overall, the average energy cost to make the plastic, fill the bottle, transport it to market and then deal with the waste would be "like filling up a quarter of every bottle with oil.

And that, my friends, is gas guzzling.

But that’s not all; Americans wasted over 10 billion dollars last year buying a free and abundant resource. That’s 10 billion dollars that didn’t get donated to cancer research, environmental sciences, or my retirement fund. What a complete waste of money.

I’m sorry to be so harsh, but hey, I own a Buick so I have to make myself feel better somehow.

Please drink it from the tap, it only tastes "funny" because you’re used to bottled crap, I drink from the tap all the time and it tastes fine. Finally, if you don’t trust private enterprise to take care of your health care system why do you trust them to sanitize your water? So I leave you with one more fun fact from the Wikipedia article:

About 22 percent of brands that are tested contain, in at least one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits.

Happy Drinking.