Bottled or filtered water: compare costs and plastic
Use your own receipts, system price and servicing costs. Avoided bottles are measurable, but they are only part of the environmental comparison.
Start with a month of purchases
Record the litres of drinking water bought over 30 days and the cost in Armenian dram, including delivery. Separate single-use bottles from returnable large containers. A refunded container deposit is not a recurring expense.
Compare equal volumes for the same uses. If you already cook with tap water, do not count all that water as a bottled-water expense.
The purchase price is only part of the filter cost
Include the system, installation, cartridges, servicing and additional water use in the first-year total. Add electricity where the model has a pump. Later years exclude buying another unit unless replacement is necessary.
Filac includes free delivery and installation for home systems in Armenia. Ask for the selected model’s replacement-part costs and schedule. You need those figures to calculate when the savings would cover the purchase cost.
Count the bottles you would actually replace
An illustrative example: four litres a day is 120 litres over 30 days, equivalent to 80 single-use 1.5-litre bottles. Replacing that entire volume with filtered water would avoid buying 80 such bottles that month. This is an example, not average Armenian household consumption.
Returnable containers need a different comparison from single-use packaging. Record your actual container type and return arrangements.
Include treatment water use
Reverse osmosis sends some water to the drain. EPA WaterSense notes substantial differences between systems. Ask about water consumption per litre of treated water at your supply pressure.
Cartridges also need replacement. Buying fewer bottles reduces that packaging, but does not establish zero waste or an invariably smaller environmental footprint. Compare Filac options using your consumption and actual service costs.