For bottled water without all the messy transportation costs, New Yorkers can also consider Tap’d, which is bottled New York City tap water.

OK, I like bottled water because it can be easily chilled, carried, and doesn’t go bad after opening. But I also don’t like the plastic waste, energy to bottle and transport it, dirty looks I get when recycling the bottle onto the shoulder of the road, etc.

So I was prodded into getting aluminum bottle which I keep in the ‘fridge nice and cold.

Aluminum isn’t exactly a naturally occurring substance. It has to be mined transported and refined. Then there’s the chemicals and processing to fabricate it into a bottle. And the plastic stopper. All that may be equivalent to a hundred plastic bottles. But eventually I’m saving plastic and the other waste.

An aluminum bottle full of cold water is very cold to hold. The aluminum is a perfect medium to suck the heat right out of my hand. Maybe I need to wrap it in a less conductive material … perhaps a plastic sleeve or mittens or turn up the thermostat to compensate for cold hands.