I've always thought the bottled water industry was insane. Why pay a dollar for a bottle of water, when you can get it out of the tap for a fraction of a cent? If you don't like the tap water taste, get a filter (they're cheap) and you're still way way ahead on cost.

And if you buy water in plastic bottles, doesn't the plastic leach into the water? Why drink that?

I grew up in Arizona, where you drink a couple of gallons of water a day. Nobody drank water from bottles. There were water fountains everywhere, every store had one. When hiking, you just bought a canteen and filled it from the tap.

Yes, as someone living in a country with clean and tasty water from the tap, it's quite shocking see the massive bottle consumption in countries where most (?) drinking water is distributed in disposable bottles/containers.