Australians spend around $2 billion a year on bottled water. Per household it doesn't sound like much — a few dollars at the supermarket, a six-pack here and there. But the compounding maths over a decade is genuinely surprising. Here it is.
The setup
Family of four. Each adult drinks 2 L/day, kids 1 L each. Total daily intake: 6 L. We'll assume two-thirds is bottled, one-third tap (a typical "we drink bottled when we can" pattern). That's 4 L/day of bottled = 28 L/week.
Average Australian supermarket price for still bottled water (excluding premium glass and "alkaline" novelty brands): $1.50/L.
Year 1
- 4 L/day × 365 = 1,460 L
- 1,460 × $1.50 = $2,190/year on bottled water
- ≈ 2,920 plastic bottles consumed (assuming 600 mL average bottle size)
Year 5
Account for inflation (avg 3% per year on FMCG). Total spend over 5 years: ~$11,600. Plastic bottles consumed: ~14,600.
Year 10
- Total bottled water spend: ~$25,000 (with inflation)
- Plastic bottles consumed: ~29,200
- Tonnes of CO₂ from packaging + transport: ~3.5 t
- Litres of fuel used to deliver that water to your home: ~520 L
The alternatives, costed honestly
Option A: Filtered tap water (jug or under-sink)
Brita-style jug: $50 + ~$80/year cartridges = $850 over 10 years.
Under-sink carbon: $500 install + $120/year cartridges = $1,700 over 10 years.
Caveat: filtered tap is great if your suburb's water is already decent. If you're in a chlorine-heavy or hard-water area, taste might still drive you back to bottled.
Option B: Atmospheric water generator (A10)
$1,650 unit + $140/year filters = $3,050 over 10 years.
Plus electricity: ~$200/year × 10 = $2,000.
Total: ~$5,050 over 10 years.
vs bottled at $25,000 — saves you $19,950.
Pays back in ~14 months.
Option C: Whole-house filtration
$3,999 installed + $140/year filters = $6,400 over 10 years.
Saves $18,600 vs bottled. Plus filtered showers, baths, laundry, dishwasher, hot water system protection — value beyond drinking.
The non-financial costs people forget
- Lugging. 1,460 L of bottled water = 1.46 tonnes of weight carried into your home each year. That's a lot of trolley pushing.
- Storage. 28 L/week of bottles needs cupboard or pantry space.
- Recycling logistics. Sorting, bin space, the council recycling that goes to landfill anyway when contaminated.
- The plastic itself. 29,000 bottles per family per decade. Multiply by Australia's ~10 million households and you see why this is a $2B/year category problem.
Bottom line
If you're a typical Aussie family of four buying bottled water out of habit, you're spending close to $25,000 over 10 years on water that's measurably worse than what you can produce at home for under $6,000. Switching pays back in 17 months and the 10-year saving could fund a family holiday.
The two systems we sell — the A10 atmospheric water generator for drinking and the whole-house HPF-3 for the entire home — both pay back inside 2 years against bottled water. Both can be split into 4 interest-free payments with Afterpay, Klarna or Zip at checkout.
Read next: What's actually in supermarket bottled water · How atmospheric water generators work