water filter vs bottled water cost

Water Filter vs. Bottled Water Cost Calculator: Check How Much You Can Save Today

There is no surprise that plastic is terrible. We hear it every day in the news:

Plastic pollutes oceans across the world. In fact, there are countless “waste islands” in the middle of it.

I am convinced that most of us are guilty of contributing to this!

How?

Just have a look at the packaging of most products. It’s made of plastic!

One of the biggest contributors to this is bottled water.

Not only is it expensive, but nearly 70% of all plastic bottles end up in the landfill, which leaves only 20% to be recycled.

I have decided to create a simple calculator.

Based on your bottled water usage, it calculates how much money you can save every year by switching to filtered water.

I have also calculated the estimated impact on the environment.

So here it is:

Explanation of results

Pretty cool isn’t it?

I bet you didn’t expect to see such number and it might be hard to believe.

I think it is important to explain how I have come up with these calculations. As then, you can see that they are quite precise.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that although I have done my best to make calculations as realistic as possible, these are only close estimations. I cannot guarantee that you will have exactly the same savings as given in the calculator. Therefore I don’t carry any responsibility if you won’t experience estimated cost savings.

Right, let me explain how I have estimated savings.

PS: Don’t make the USD currency fool you, the calculator works with any currency. The dollar is set up only because this blog has most of its readers from the US.

Calculated Savings

The calculator works with two sets of data.

The first section calculates the amount of money you spend per year buying bottled water.

If you know what filter you would like to purchase, the second set of data takes the amount of money you will spend every year on the replacement cartridges, based on how often you replace them.

The final numbers are presented as the estimated savings in the first year, this includes the purchase price of the filter. The second calculation shows you the amount of money you will save every following year, the purchasing price of the filter is excluded, but it covers the price of replacement cartridges.

Limitations

Now, although it gives you a pretty close estimation, there are certain limitations to consider.

The thing is, I have tried to make the calculator as simple as possible with the minimum required input from you.

So, the limitation it has is that it doesn’t take into account that some filters have more than one stage. Certain stages like RO membranes could last longer than the rest of the stages so, you don’t need to replace them at the same time.

For this reason, if you want to have the closest estimation, you need to enter the total price of all replacement cartridges.

The second problem is harder to overcome as it would require to enter so much information from you, and to be fair, I don’t think it would make a big impact on the results.

Calculated Impact On The Environment

This is the more interesting part.

Basically, I have done some research and tried to understand how much of the emissions are produced with every single PET plastic bottle.

I have found a research which shows that there is roughly 82.8 grams of carbon dioxide generated with every 500 mil (0.53 quarts) plastic bottle.

So, I took this information and used 83 grams per bottle to calculate the estimated emissions.

Note that this number is a bare minimum of emissions you will save. Chances are that you are buying bottles with bigger capacity, which of course create more emissions.

According to the study found by Food & Water Watch about 70% of all plastic bottles end up in the landfill.

The calculation I did is that I took 30% off the total number of bottles that we assume are being recycled, and the final number is what is not going to get into the landfill.

Wrapping Up

I really, really hope that you find this calculator useful and it helped you to make a good decision to swap bottled water with the water filter.

I would love to hear all your comments and ideas you have in regards to this calculator in the comments below.

  • What else would you like to see in this calculator?
  • How big was your savings estimation per calculator?

PS: Don’t forget to share the calculator with your friends over social media!

Sharing is caring!

4 thoughts on “Water Filter vs. Bottled Water Cost Calculator: Check How Much You Can Save Today”

  1. Hi, thanks for putting this calculator together! I think it would be helpful to provide a few examples of cost savings using some of the water filter systems you recommend to help people make informed purchasing decisions.

    1. Hi Paul,

      My calculator doesn’t take into account the price of water, because the cost for tap water is so minor that it wouldn’t make much of a difference if we are purely talking about drinking water volume.

      Eugen

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