The drink bottle has to be the best consumer product ever, and here's why…
Every person on earth will have the need for a drink bottle in their life as humans need water to survive, and we need a way to transport it as there is not always a source nearby. It is a very easy product to interact with because a person does not have to be taught how to use it, as babies are able to suck as soon as they are born. Furthermore people will continue to have a need for them for the rest of their life. There are very few products on the market that people will rely on for their entire life.
Money must be another factor when considering the best consumer product ever. Around 200 billion bottles of water are consumed globally every year and it costs around 20 cents to make a bottle, which is about 10 percent of the average sale price. So if my maths is right that's a 380 billion dollar profit a year (minus salaries and other expenses) and that's just for water!
Undoubtedly the water bottle is the best consumer product not only for its versatility of use, its economic value but most importantly for its ability to save lives.
James Meikle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water#cite_note-3
(I'm sorry its wikipedia)
I don't like the idea that we are choosing our best consumer products according to how profitable they are. Single use 'bottled water' is terrible for the environment, and remarkably over-priced compared to tap water (when its safe to drink, and when its not we just buy Sam Foss's LifeStraw...).
ReplyDeleteNicholas Avery
I agree with Nick and personally disagree that the drink bottle is the best consumer product. Especially in a place like Melbourne where clean water is plentiful, bottled water is completely unnecessary and ridiculously overpriced. And in places like africa, where clean water is scarce, you will rarely find vendors selling these unaffordable bottled water. If these bottle water were sold at 20 cents per unit instead of 2 dollars, I would then probably then consider it a worthy product, because right now it just seems like an easy way for big corporate giants to make money.
ReplyDelete-Phi Do
I'm going to agree with Nicholas and Phi in the case of bottled water.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all here's a quote from the wikipedia article you cited.
- Bottled water has been described as "one of the greatest cons of the 20th century" and as "marketing's answer to the emperor's new clothes"-
Single use water bottles are hydrocarbon based (15million barrels of oil used to produce them in the USA alone), and largely un-recycled products. The majority of them end up in landfill or the ocean (Google- Great Pacific Garbage Patch).
Samf
Yes, a bit controversial this one. Good post James.
ReplyDeleteIt comes down to implementation and responsibility I think. There are opportunities to save lives and provide clean water, but the vast majority of bottled water users are in wealthy, developed countries where the tap water is clean.
Even brands which offer bottle designs with "20% less plastic" are doing massive environmental damage.
Perhaps the Sigg water bottle (which lasts in the order of 30 years and is recyclable) is a rejoinder to this post?
Robbie