New York — Two teachers on their lunch break scanned a refrigerated shelf inside a Manhattan coffee shop lined with drink bottles: Naked Juice, Perrier, Smartwater, New York City tap water.
“Tap water?” said Alison Szeli, 26, picking up the clear plastic bottle with orange letters: “Tap’d NY. Purified New York City tap water.” She studied the description: “No glaciers were harmed in making this water.” She compared prices: Smartwater cost $1.85. Tap’d NY was 35 cents less. Szeli and her co-worker went for tap, carrying the bottles to the cash register. “It’s cheaper,” Szeli said. “Water is all the same anyway. I just prefer to buy my own water in bottles.” A few feet away, a scruffy-haired 29-year-old in jeans and a striped shirt delivered a shipment of Tap’d NY out of a rented Scion. Craig Zucker, founder of Tap’d NY, stopped unloading long enough to notice the two customers buying his brand. He smiled.
In the five months since he started the company, he has proved his hunch: People are willing to pay for New York City tap water, and not just in monthly utility bills.
“It doesn’t require energy or pumping,” Zucker said, “and it’s so pure and clean.”
To bottle the stuff, Zucker and his business partner, Jon Flax, 26, who was recruited from Craigslist, pump the water together from a main in a Brooklyn warehouse they rent. Their water bill costs about $2 for every 748 gallons. They fill up a 5,300-gallon leased tanker truck, hiring a driver to transport the water 12 miles across the river to New Jersey to be bottled.
P.T. Barnum was correct.
If it is generally good water as many here attest, further purification and bottling may make it a reasonable product. Plastic bottles however are dodgy (glass is better as far as I know).
I used to drink 1.5 LT of Evian-naivE every day and after a period of not consuming it, when I tried it again it tasted strongly of chlorine.
#13, Wouldn’t you buy just one bottle for the convenience, then fill it up from the tap and put it in the fridge?
Good to go on the next trip!
New York is largely a pedestrian city. You’re not going to want to carry a re-filled water bottle with you every time you go for a long walk or go on the subway. It’s easier to pack light and buy a new bottle of water when you get thirsty.
There are plenty of environmental problems with all the plastics, but I would hazard a guess that when comparing the cons of plastic bottles with the benefits of a dense population that overwhelmingly uses mass transit, New York is more environmentally friendly than most cities in America.
NYC apparently has the best tap water in the country, which means it probably has the best tap water in the world.
People buying bottled water are paying for the convenience, and for a clean plastic container – and I doubt anyone buying water would disagree with this. No one is such an idiot that they are ignorant of the real price of water.
#24 you do realize that ‘the world’ you speak of actually extends further than the US border right?
Typical NYers…ignorant in their purchases as they are in life, overspending for every name brand they can find. And they call themselves ‘refined’, I call them ‘gullible’ and ‘idiotic’.
26,
trust me, not every New Yorker is a spoiled yuppie asshole.
#26, Brian,
And I wonder what they think of you?
I’ve stayed in NYC apartments numerous times. In some the tap water was good, in others it was brown tinged (I don’t know how it tasted). It depends on your pipes.
On those rare occasions we buy bottled water, it is for the convenience. We usually save the bottles to refill.
In the summer I fill them half way and prop them on an angle in the freezer. When we go out I’ll fill them up with water. The ice keeps them cold longer and the extra surface contact helps cool any additional water faster.
It seems more and more people are reusing water bottles.
This is not new… about 30 years ago, Macy’s bottled NYC water and sold it. Some people bought it, but it was a flop.
#6 BigBoyBC said, “Actually, Barnum never really did say that…”
Actually, Barnum never denied saying it.
Can we stop the myth that NYC tap water is good? The stuff is disgusting. So many blind tastings puts the city in last place continuously, so when are we going to stop fooling ourselves?
Brian #26,
Have you ever even been to NY? I’m guessing no…