BottledWater

Erin Brockovich -- the real one, not the movie version -- wants us to put down the bottle and turn on the tap. Bottled water is no safer and less regulated than tap water and way more expensive, she explained at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she's appearing in the new documentary Last Call at the Oasis.

Coca-Cola reported strong second quarter results, with growth coming from emerging markets like China and Russia. Coke is the leader in the Chinese market, and with it projected to keep growing at a rapid rate, the nation is a key part of the company's plan to double its 2009 revenues by 2020.

The Japanese are stockpiling bottled water and other drinks after being warned that unsafe levels of radioactive iodine had been found in Tokyo's tap water. That moved investors to jump on the stocks of beverage makers, but only a few companies are in a position to meet Japan's rising demand.

Conventional wisdom would say that washing dishes is more energy-efficient than using the dishwasher, and that you need air cleaners to help keep your home free of pollutants. But sometimes, conventional wisdom needs to be rethought, and when warranted, debunked. People will shell out money on...

A Kiplinger.com article by Joan Goldwasser suggests 10 things that we overpay for on a daily or weekly basis. They include afternoon snacks, bottled water, coffee shop coffee, CDs, movie tickets, fresh flowers, pre-cut fruits and veggies, credit card late fees, ATM fees and fax and mail...

Dollar stores are great places to find bargains on any number of household needs but you can't always assume that, just because it's only $1, you're automatically getting the most bang for your buck. Prices and quantities may vary according to stores in your town, but going by my shopping list,...

Successful business people know how to turn lemons into lemonade. Good products can be almost as simple.In a world of music-playing phones, internet-enabled refrigerators and satellite-based car navigation, some companies have found success with such low-tech products as urine, mud and even air....

Have you heard this joke:Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!Don't worry sir, the spider on the breadroll will get him!How about this one:Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!Force of habit, sir. Our chef used to be a tailor.Or maybe this one:Waiter, why is there a bee in my soup?Sorry, sir. It's the...

The Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn announced this week that they would no longer sell bottled water. According to a report in the New York Times, that amounts to about 670 gallons of water every week since the co-op has nearly 14,000 members. Meanwhile, across the river in Manhattan, New York...

Drink this up. Despite what the marketers of bottled water have almost convinced us of, there remains little scientific evidence that drinking eight cups of water a day does anything more for your health than make you pee a lot. A piece in last week's Health Section of the New York Times cites a...