Comparison Calculator: The Price We Pay for Bottled Water

Pile of 5-gallon plastic jugs

When it comes to your workplace or warehouse water supplies, you don’t have to give up sustainability for economic growth. You can save money and the environment with one simple ergonomic machine: the bottleless water cooler (a.k.a. point-of-use water cooler).

A bottleless water cooler can save your business thousands of dollars annually. Plus, businesses that replace their 5-gallon water coolers with bottleless water coolers reduce their corporate carbon footprint by tens of thousands of pounds every year. That’s like trading in a gas-guzzling Range Rover for a Tesla Model X!

But you don’t have to take our word for it! Test out our comparison calculator below and find out exactly how much your workplace water is costing your business and the environment.

The Real Cost of Bottled Water

See How Our Bottleless Coolers Compare

Enter daily number of users:

Estimated Total Annual Cost
CO2 Equivalent: Miles in Passenger Vehicle
CO2 Equivalent: Operating Hours of LED Lightbulb
CO2 Equivalent: Miles Flown on a Passenger Airplane
CO2 Equivalent: Pounds of Coal Burning
Bottleless Water Cooler (Rental)
Bottleless Water Cooler (Purchase)
Jug Delivery (Cooler Rental)
Jug Delivery (Cooler Purchase)
Bottle Delivery
Premium Bottled Water

Estimated Total Annual Cost of Your Business’s Drinking Water

The actual water within water bottles and 5-gallon water jugs accounts for less than $0.00001 of the total price you pay per plastic container. The rest of the cost of each container is a markup based on the price to produce and transport each bottle and jug.

How Can You Save Money by Going Bottleless

Bottleless water coolers connect directly to a building’s water line and filter on-site. Therefore, businesses that use bottleless water coolers avoid extra costs associated with the regular shipping and handling of plastic water containers. And you don’t have to comprise the integrity of the workplace layout when you add one to your facilities either. The bottleless water cooler’s ergonomic design makes it perfectly suited to fit any workplace or warehouse layout design.

Many bottleless water coolers even offer advanced filtration plus mineral additives. So, even though point-of-use water machines cost less than water delivery services, the water quality is equal to or higher than high-end premium bottled water. Premium water includes supplemental ingredients, such as vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and flavors. Those same ingredients can be found in many bottleless water coolers like the Quench Q Series.

Estimated Total Carbon Footprint of Your Company’s Water Service

Source of CO₂ Emissions from a
Water Delivery Service
Source of CO₂ Emissions from a
Bottleless Water Cooler
Extracting Fossil Fuels Manufacturing Bottleless Water Coolers
Making Plastic Service Trucks: One-Time Installation
Manufacturing Containers Service Trucks: Annual or Bi-Annual Service Visits
Delivery Trucks: Weekly or Bi-Weekly Deliveries  
Plastic Disposal or Plastic Recycle  
Plastic Decomposing  

To many, the taste of plain tap water is about as appetizing as the taste of cardboard. Consumers dish out big bucks for bottled water because they trust that it tastes better and is cleaner than tap water. Yet, bottled water costs more than dollars and cents.

When it comes to bottled water – both in a single-use plastic water bottle or a 5-gallon jug water delivery service – the corporate carbon footprint is extensive. From fracking to degrading, every stage of the plastic production process generates greenhouse gas emissions. To put it in perspective, a passenger airplane could fly around the world more than 31 times and still emit fewer tons of CO₂ than a bottled water delivery company that serves 50 daily users in one year.  Think how much you could reduce your corporate carbon footprint by eliminating the need for plastic bottles in your workplace or warehouse layout design.

Beyond CO₂ emissions, water delivery services can significantly boost your corporate plastic footprint. A single plastic water bottle takes over 450 years to decompose. That means unless you’re Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, every plastic water bottle you have ever purchased still exists in some form or another, including in microscopic particles. Over the years, ultraviolet light from the sun causes the plastic to disintegrate through a process called photodegradation. Photodegradation breaks down plastic water into pieces of waste known as microplastics. These tiny plastic fragments have been detected in the air, water, and even some foods.

How You Can Reduce Environmental Harm by Going Bottleless

Unlike a water delivery service that produces, fills, transports, delivers, and recycles plastic water bottle containers, a bottleless water cooler pulls water from your building’s existing water line. Replacing your 5-gallon water cooler with a bottleless water cooler can:

  • Reduce your corporate carbon footprint every year by 98.7% (for a company with 50 users)
  • Prevent over 7,000 single-use plastic bottles and over 150 plastic jugs out of landfills every year

Make the Switch to a Bottleless Water Cooler and Start Saving

No matter how you crunch the numbers, bottleless water coolers outshine plastic water jugs and bottles.

Businesses with larger warehouse facilities can save even more plastic, carbon emissions, and money by switching to high-capacity water coolers like the Quench 980 or the Quench Q12. These machines are equipped with commercial capacity water tanks and large dispensing areas to keep up with high-traffic environments. So instead of crowding your warehouse layout design with racks of plastic water jugs, you can save space, plastic, carbon emissions, and money with a single machine that can offer your warehouse workers even more.   

Want to learn more about how Quench bottleless water coolers can save your company money and save the environment? Click here! Can’t wait to get started? Click on the green “Get a Quote” button and we will have one of our Quench Water Experts contact you. Or give us a call at (888) 877-0571!