New year, new decade, old habit?

This is a question for those of you who buy cases of bottled water at the grocery store: Why do you do it? I really would like to know. I have addressed this topic several times before. I do not intend to rehash what I've already covered. But it occurred to me that I have never really asked this question. Perhaps readers who don't buy bottled water could help in this quest. Ask people you know who do this and send a report to me.

Honestly, I find the behavior perplexing on many levels, but let's just focus on price. I was scanning a flyer for one of our three chain grocery stores in Concord. The store was offering its own brand of water in a 24-pack of 16.9 oz. bottles for $2.99. That is quite a deal, especially compared with name-brand waters. Still, if you drink eight, 8 oz. cups of water daily (an amount recommended by the Mayo Clinic as a good goal to replace fluids typically lost in a day by an average adult), you would go through that case in six days. That means you would need to buy about five cases a month. Even if you were lucky enough to find that $2.99 price each time you shopped, you would be shelling out $15 for water.

Now to take this one step further: If you don't happen to recycle, those bottles take up a lot of space in the purple bags you buy to dispose of your trash. It doesn't make a lot of sense to spend more money to buy bags for empty bottles you didn't need in the first place. Even if you do recycle, remember the most important "R" with respect to consumption is Reduce. It is far better to not make the bottled water purchase to begin with.

So, Concord, tell me why bottled water is so important to you that you willingly increase your grocery bill instead of saving money at the kitchen faucet?

If you have a comment or question for the Recyclinator, e-mail news@theconcordinsider.com.