
Plastic Water Bottles, Which Enabled a Drinks Boom, Now Threaten Industry - prostoalex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bottled-water-americas-most-popular-drink-has-a-plastic-problem-11544627923
======
andrewstuart
The solution is to stop making single use plastic and require reuse of
standard bottle sizes, with tax paid on non standard bottle sizes.

~~~
egypturnash
The solution is to legislate bottled water companies out of existence, and
keep our public water systems in good shape.

But that's not what anyone working for a company founded on laying dubious
legal claims to water that should be public, and selling it for a profit,
wants to hear.

~~~
Tsubasachan
The tap water in my country is one of the best in the world and scientifically
proven to be better than mineral water. I still buy Evian.

~~~
ksec
The tap water at closest source were scientifically tested to be decent , but
the pipes that carries it, and the pipes that is inside my building were not.
Mostly with added lead and heavy metal.

I wish I didn't knew any of these. I wish I could have simply continue to
drink water like I once did. But now I get to spend money buying drinking
water or filters.

Fear Sells. What a world we live in.

------
Const-me
300 million years ago Earth had a problem with cellulose. Plants produced a
lot, no one consumed it, it accumulated for millennia and later became what we
call fossil fuel.

Then modern fungi evolved, and the problem went away. Just like plastic,
cellulose can provide energy when oxidized, it’s just tricky to break but
that’s what modern fungi do.

I wonder can we genetically engineer a bacteria or fungi that will consume
that plastic? Ideally, before we have drunk the water from these plastic
bottles.

~~~
jimmaswell
I'd be concerned about household plastic products degrading over time. Would
an original Atari still be in any fit shape today if such bacteria or fungi
had been around?

~~~
ryanmercer
This is a semi-valid concern. It would take a relatively small amount of an
organism to contaminate something, and unless you're regularly cleaning
everything made of those types of plastics you could have some real issues.

We fight mold and termites now in our living spaces, imagine if you had a
plastic-eating organism and a little bit took up residence in a hotel, an
office, your car, a bus or train, your house.

Even if it was relatively slow at breaking down it could cause considerable
cosmetic damage. A little gets on your laptop display. You leave it at home
and go on vacation for a week, you come back and some light etching has
occurred over streaks of your monitor and the screen is now fogged and needs
replaced, you wipe the exterior down as best as you can before replacing the
screen and are pretty sure you got it all. Your screen gets replaced, your
laptop works great again until a month later you pick it up and your spacebar
falls off, the plastic switch entirely degraded, you open up the laptop only
to find most of the internal plastic is structurally compromised, you
unknowingly transferred some of the organism inside when you replaced your
screen.

Here in Indiana, sometimes in the spring and summer, there's this fungus
called 'lawn rust' that has orange spores that resemble rust and get on your
lawn and will even get on vehicles (which will just wash off) but imagine
something getting in the wild and landing on your car with a largely plastic
body... go a week or a month without washing your car and you might get home
from the car wash one day and notice your bumpers are pitted, oh darn the
future plastic eating bacteria/fungi strikes again.

Even if only kept this stuff in industrial facilities, unless you go NASA
level clean-room when leaving the facility it'd be damn easy for some to hitch
a ride on someone headed home from work and, well, "life will find a way".

~~~
dsfyu404ed
So basically like rust or rot but for plastic.

I don't think it would be that big a deal. For the longest time things were
built with leather and wood instead of rubber/plastic and society survived
just fine.

I think a lot of people are over-reacting to the idea of plastic rotting
because they live in the Southern California filter bubble where nothing rots
or rusts (because it's basically a desert) and so the idea that one wouldn't
just be able to leave materials outside and expect them to be just fine is
foreign to them. Having materials naturally degrade over time is just a fact
of life everywhere else on the planet.

~~~
njarboe
Yea. But wouldn't be great to be able to build things that would last a long
time in the elements?

~~~
bmurphy1976
Sure, but if the trade-off is permanent climate change and environmental
destruction, maybe a little continuous renewal would be a good thing.

~~~
njarboe
Well plastic does not really contribute to climate change at the moment.
Bacteria breaking down the plastic would release CO2 and thus contribute to
climate change.

These discussions on the internet so rarely bring any true insight to most
topics, but the few nuggets that are rarely found sure make looking for it
pretty addictive.

~~~
Teever
This isn't true. A significant amount of CO2 and other waste products are
emitted when producing plastics.

------
petermcneeley
If only there were pipes to peoples homes to provide them with safe water for
bathing and drinking.

~~~
3chelon
I just wonder how our ancestors did it. Not only did they survive without
plastic bottles, but they even survived the last 99.99% of biological history
without _plumbing_!

I drives me mad. We solved the problem over a century ago. The ancient Greeks
and Romans even solved it in their time.

The problem was reinvented by marketing, and everyone fell for it, to the
point that kids are told to take plastic water bottles to school (despite the
existence of water taps there), and public announcements at train and tube
stations warn people _not to travel_ without a plastic bottle, in case they
have to survive without a sip of water for an hour. It's like we're all living
in the Sahara desert. It's insane.

From a marketing PoV it must be the single most successful campaign in
history. And given its success, and massive profits, they should be the ones
whom foot the bill for cleaning up the godawful mess they've created.

~~~
sigstoat
> I just wonder how our ancestors did it. Not only did they survive without
> plastic bottles, but they even survived the last 99.99% of biological
> history without plumbing!

the species survived without those things. plenty of individuals didn't.

~~~
kgwgk
Our ancestors definitely did, at least until puberty.

~~~
mvid
Survivor bias isn't a great motivator for an individual

------
bunderbunder
What does the full analysis of what goes into bottled water look like? Because
it seems to me like, at this point, the "bottle" part of bottled water could
be the least worrisome bit. Even if you get rid of the bottle, what does it
take just to physically ship all this water around?

It's pretty heavy stuff. I'd assume its probably much more economical to
transport in pipes than in trucks. Sort of like we do with things like oil and
gas, when it's feasible to do so.

~~~
3chelon
The "bottle" part is pretty bad. I heard somewhere a water bottle will last
400 years. I don't know for certain that that's true, but if it is, I can only
wonder just who thought it would make an ideal container for someone to use
for a few minutes and then throw away?

~~~
bunderbunder
There are so many ways to frame pollution.

Taking 400 years to biodegrade is a big problem if you're worried about
litter, or microplastics. On other hand, if you're more worried about things
like climate change or smog, then turning it into something you bury and
forget about might actually be the least harmful thing we could be doing with
all this oil we've been pumping out of the ground lately.

If it biodegrades, then it becomes a source of atmospheric CO2 just about as
efficiently as if you were instead to burn it to make cars go.

~~~
3chelon
Yes, I agree, and I'd go so far as to saying burning it is in one way better
than it ending up in the sea, but clearly very bad in another sense. Just
another example of how different facets of the "environmental" argument can be
in conflict with one another.

Nuclear power vs coal/oil power is similar dilemma.

------
the_watcher
Question: Are cans much better for the environment? I've long preferred cans
to bottles for things like soda (although I almost never drink it anymore),
sparkling water, etc. They've always seemed to get and stay colder, although
that may not be the case. I feel a little bit better about my preference when
picking a canned La Croix over a bottled Arrowhead at work, but I realize now
that I don't really have any idea about the environmental impact of cans v.
bottles.

~~~
michelledepeil
I believe cans are more easily recyclable, in part because they're so easy to
seperate from other trash (using a big magnet).

~~~
akiselev
Aluminum isn't ferromagnetic so magnets don't work with it and stripping the
graphics off a soda can alone requires just as much energy and nasty chemicals
as other recycled materials. That's before you even smelt anything, which
usually requires a forge that spends insane amounts of energy just to keep it
from shutting down and needing an even more expensive cold start.

It's not that recycling aluminum is easier than other materials, it's that
making aluminum from raw bauxite is like the above process times ten. The
chemicals are even more dangerous, the process management (environmental
protection, regulatory compliance, etc) more expensive, and it requires even
more energy. As a result, between 1/3 to 2/3 of all aluminum sold in the US
comes from recycled materials because of economic reasons.

~~~
munk-a
Your mention of advertising... I'd be really happy if we could start cutting
down the insane effort we're putting into dyeing things and just relegate
flashy marketing to the waste bin of history. The same with form advertising
(clam shells and the like) where additional material is added just to make a
product look more attractive.

~~~
lozenge
The clam shells make shoplifting difficult, and you need to get the barcode
onto the can at a minimum, at which point what difference does the rest of the
label make?

------
woodandsteel
For water, get it from your tap, and carry it with you in a glass or metal
container. If you have good, scientifically reasons to believe your tap water
is not so hot, use a high-tech filter. In the extreme, buy water in mass from
a company that purifies it, and store it at home. All these solutions will be
better for the environment, and as an added benefit much cheaper.

As for soft drinks, they are bad for your health, so just stop drinking them.

~~~
Johnny555
If I had water that was proven to be unsafe, I wouldn't trust many "consumer
grade" filters, and I'd want to do regular water testing to prove that any
treatment that I do hasn't silently failed to work.

~~~
magissima
Even in that situation you can at the least buy gallon or larger jugs instead
of small plastic bottles.

------
ajay-d
60 minutes had a segment last night on plastic reaching the most remotes parts
of the ocean. Incredibly disheartening.

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-great-pacific-garbage-
patch...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-
cleaning-up-the-plastic-in-the-ocean-60-minutes/)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Are _you_ personally dumping your used plastic in the ocean?

Trash from just 10 rivers is responsible for 90 percent of ocean plastic
pollution: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-
plas...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-
tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/)

Those 10 rivers are all in the developing world and China: the Hai, Nile,
Meghna, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Pearl, Amur, Niger, Mekong, Indus, Yellow, and
Yangtze. In terms of countries that's: China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria.

~~~
bennettfeely
And as the 60 Minutes documentary talks about, the US ships a huge amount of
recycled plastics across the ocean to countries like Vietnam, Thailand,
Malaysia, and until recently, China.

So the plastic you throw in the recycling bin in the US might very well end up
in one of those 10 polluted rivers and in the ocean.

------
sdafsafas
Ok, I'll say it.

Tap water tastes gross in every major N. American city I've lived in. I'll
filter it, air it out and chill it. But out of the tap, N. American water
tastes bad. A little town in Albania I've visited once has (much) tastier
water than any city I've been here.

I can't blame ppl for drinking bottled water (Evian is gross though)

~~~
JohnFen
"But out of the tap, N. American water tastes bad."

This may be true in the cities/neighborhoods that you've lived in, but in most
(not all) of the cities I've lived in, the tap water has been excellent.

To say that all North American tap water tastes bad is simply false.

~~~
wyclif
It's also got trace amounts of fluoride, which is good for your teeth. Ask any
Canadian or English dentist about the difference between countries like the US
that flouridate the tap water and countries that don't.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Your stereotypes are about 40 years out of date.

~~~
wyclif
[citation needed]

And yet, repeatedly in this thread I asked for scientific studies on the
effects of tap water, and nobody provided them. Hmmm. Perhaps "steady on"
should be your watchword.

------
hadlock
Five whys seems to indicate that the main problem is bottled water companies
compete on clarity, bottled water companies could/would use recycled plastic
if they had to use an opaque plastic container, like what soylent uses, rather
than competing on "clear". Banning sales of bottled water in clear containers
would allow all bottled water companies to still compete on packaging, while
removing the limitation that they all use new, super clear plastic.

~~~
exelius
Yeah, I’ve seen restaurants serve water in cardboard boxes (think a bigger
juice box). There are options, but yeah; we like to be able to see through our
water.

~~~
lozenge
You mean tetrapaks? That unrecyclable mix of plastic, metal and paper?

~~~
bluesaunders
I'd suspect more like this: [https://jet.com/product/Boxed-Water-Is-Better-
Purified-Water...](https://jet.com/product/Boxed-Water-Is-Better-Purified-
Water-169-Fl-Oz-Pack-
of-24/9358091daa884bdfa191f27e94f0a118?jcmp=pla:ggl:everything_else_catch_all:new_p1_all_products:na:PLA_791021474_42804924682_pla-296303633664_c:na:na:na:2PLA15&pid=kenshoo_int&c=791021474&is_retargeting=true&clickid=e2299876-d07d-4edc-b16c-56057985029a&kclid=e2299876-d07d-4edc-b16c-56057985029a&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxc_dy4So3wIV0KZpCh0foQKWEAQYAiABEgLJmvD_BwE)

~~~
kalleboo
Yes, that's a tetrapak
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Tetra_Pa...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Tetra_Pak_packaging_portfolio_I_medium_size.jpg)

------
tolate
So In my country, If you want to buy a bottle of cocacola fanta etc. You can
only buy it if you come with an empty bottle of the same product. This is a
way of life. The same thing can be done with bottle water. To buy bottle
water, return an empty bottle of water. If you don't then you pay premium

~~~
Kluny
What country?

------
WalterBright
Seems like the most practical solution is to use it to fill up old open pit
mines.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I managed to completely stop buying regular water bottles in favor of using a
refillable vacuum-insulated bottle at all times (except for a handful that I
keep in the car for emergencies), but I've noticed the plastic bottles are
starting to creep back in ever since I stopped drinking sodas and moved to
sparkling water. I guess I could switch to canned Perrier or even the glass
bottles, but they're harder to find.

I suppose next year I'll just bite the bullet and buy a Soda Stream (or some
kind of BDS-approved equivalent).

~~~
ravenstine
I don't really understand why most if not all bottles don't use aluminum
instead of plastic. I get that it's a marketing thing, but I see no practical
reason why aluminum couldn't be used more often. That doesn't fix the
littering of the ocean issue, but I guess if I had to pick one over the other
I'd rather the ocean get trashed with aluminum than with plastic.

Also, do you need Perrier brand specifically? I haven't seen that come in
cans, but now there are more brands than ever of sparkling water that come in
cans, which is what I most often buy.

~~~
Cthulhu_
> I don't really understand why most if not all bottles don't use aluminum
> instead of plastic.

Because aluminium is a lot more expensive and difficult to manufacture at
scale than plastic. It's also a lot more reusable, but reusing aluminium costs
energy, and reusing glass bottles requires either energy to melt it, or an
extensive recycling / reusing infrastructure (like with beer bottles over
here).

Re: sparkling water, there's water fountains that can produce sparkling water
on the fly now. Ask your employer to get those installed.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Isn't aluminium supposed to be toxic? Probably the amount absorbed from
drinking from aluminium bottles wouldn't be enough to cause concern, but I'm
not sure I would risk drinking from them all the time.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
Aluminum is one of the most abundant minerals on earth. It's probably in just
about everything. You almost certainly get more from your anti-perspirant that
you do from an aluminum can.

------
wyclif
What is the current science on the safety of drinking tap water?

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/tDJqYE](https://outline.com/tDJqYE)

~~~
TulliusCicero
Huh, I thought you had posted this for people to get around the paywall, but
it looks like it didn't really do anything?

~~~
neonate
Sorry, I didn't notice that.

This article is readable for me in an incognito window though. Seems WSJ has
changed something?

------
siruva07
Hi,

I'm the founder of Tap previously the CEO and Founder of MakeSpace. Earlier
this year I began working on a new company with the goal of eliminating the
single use plastic water bottle.

Earlier this year I made an observation, the first step of any scientific
experiment, that launched Tap. I noticed water fountains were not on Google
Maps. This puzzled me and led me to dive deeper into understanding the
beverage market.

TL;DR -- The answer is going to be carrying your own bottle (Like we all did
in high school / college / burning man). But the lack of knowing where to find
clean, unpackaged water is the reason for the growth of single-use plastic
bottles. We've set out to change that.

Here's my thoughts:

The beverage industry is ripe for disruption. There are two glaring problems
plaguing the industry:

The first is that the amount of waste created is terrible for our environment.
With ~9% of plastic waste actually getting recycled, we're seeing massive
amounts of plastic go straight to landfills and our oceans. Now that China has
recently rejected our plastic and cardboard, that problem is going to get
worse...fast. As local, city, state, and even international governments ban
single use plastic (ex. European Union), the opportunity has finally emerged.
In these progressive cities, I think the beverage industry will respond to the
local ban by moving to paper, aluminum, or glass. But any of these moves would
actually INCREASE the cost of goods sold from materials and transportation as
plastic has always been the cheapest option. Coca-Cola has even referenced
this in its 2017 10-K. (direct quote below)

“Changes in, or failure to comply with, the laws and regulations applicable to
our products or our business operations could increase our costs or reduce our
net operating revenues. Changes in applicable laws or regulations or evolving
interpretations thereof... to discourage the use of plastic, including
regulations relating to recovery and/or disposal of plastic packaging
materials due to environmental concerns... may result in increased compliance
costs, capital expenditures and other financial obligations for us and our
bottling partners, which could affect our profitability, or may impede the
production, distribution, marketing and sale of our products, which could
affect our net operating revenues.”

The second is the decline of consumer preference to sugary drinks. The
bottling industry, at one time, was significantly more decentralized because
people cared about the taste of local water. Inventions like high fructose
corn syrup (HFCS) created most of the beverages we grew up drinking and this
taste became more manufactured. However, the health problems associated with
HFCS have been enough to slow revenue from these products. In 2017, for the
first time bottled water sales exceed those of sugary drinks.

Now we see Coke/Pepsi/Nestle pushing hard into bottled water sales. We’re also
seeing JUSTWater (Jaden Smith) and Boxed Water come about, in addition to
Watermelon water which addresses the eco and consumer preference change.

These, in my opinion, are just a half step forward. So what's the answer?
Well, think outside the bottle.

Tap is going to disrupt the beverage industry by decentralizing the bottling
industry. We've created a consumer alternative to packaged beverages -- a
marketplace for unpackaged beverages with a group of users, with 17,000 users
in <60 days since launch, who carry their own bottles. As 65% of the cost of a
beverage today goes into transportation and packaging, by the mere change that
the user carries their own bottle, we can massively win on beverage options
and lower prices. Water is our first product.

Furthermore, sales of reusable bottles (Contigo -- 45 million units per year,
SOMA ,Swell, Klean, Yeti, Hydroflask) are skyrocketing with over 51% of new
reusable bottle sales being attributed to the consumers wanting to reduce
their plastic usage.

An article was published this past week in the WSJ taking aim at water
bottles. Specifically, the WSJ spoke to bottled water’s massive growth over
the years, and how its future is suddenly uncertain because of the movement to
halt the plastic crisis.

Highlights on the market:

“Bottled-water sales have boomed in recent decades amid safety fears about tap
water and a shift away from sugary drinks. Between 1994 and 2017, U.S.
consumption soared 284% to nearly 42 gallons a year per person, according to
Beverage Marketing Corp., a consulting firm.”

That is unparalleled growth… And of this boom in the U.S., 67% of all packaged
water sold has come in single-serve, disposable bottles.

While the news has decreased public trust in tap water, and consumers continue
to shift away from sugary drinks, something interesting is happening...Due to
a massive uptick in public awareness about the plastic issue, single-use
bottled-water sales are actually BEGINNING TO SLOW.

“Bottled-water volume growth is forecast to slow this year in both the U.S.
and globally, according to research firm Euromonitor. Nestlé SA, the world’s
biggest bottled-water maker, in October said its bottled-water volumes for the
first nine months of the year declined 0.2%, compared with 2.1% growth a year
earlier.”

Something interesting is happening here. Consumers are still BUYING water at
record pace because they can’t trust the tap, however, they aren’t purchasing
single-use plastic. Drinking water sales aren’t DECLINING, they are SHIFTING…
They are shifting towards bulk packaging. Consumers are shifting to bulk
because bulk is the only easily available alternative.

Another staggering statistic was released showing that one in five consumers
in the last twelve months have purchased a reusable water bottle. Of these
consumers, 52% of them said the leading driver was to reduce their personal
plastic usage. 20% of consumers in the last 12 months alone purchasing a new
reusable bottle proves there is a large market of people who incorporate
reusable bottles into their daily routine.

Beverage companies are working to catch up with the trend. According to the
WSJ, “Pepsi also now sells reusable water bottles that come with capsules to
add flavors, and is testing stations in the U.S. that dispense Aquafina-
branded water in different flavors.”

There are in fact other solutions, but major beverage brands find they are not
favorable. “A former Nestlé executive said the company’s internal research
showed consumers were unlikely to take to boxed water. Glass bottles,
meanwhile, break easily and are expensive to transport because they are
heavy.”

“Poland Spring-owner Nestlé is rolling out glass and aluminum packaging for
some brands and researching ways to make all its packaging recyclable or
reusable by 2025.” These alternatives will all INCREASE THE COST OF GOODS
SOLD, and these “solutions” are still wasteful.

So here is where we think we fit in… and it’s what we're working to prove.

“It’s tempting to romanticize a world without packaging,” Coca-Cola Co. CEO
James Quincey wrote in a blog post this year.

It’s tempting because it is happening and within our reach.

Brands like Pepsi (SodaStream) and FloWater are growing rapidly due to their
unique position in being able to provide UNPACKAGED and TRUSTED water. This is
the only solution that caters to the needs of those who don’t want the plastic
bottle, but still desired premium, filtered options. Before these brands, the
choices were limited for the reusable-bottle-carrying consumer: filter your
own water (ex. Brita), rely on water coolers (like in offices) or simply trust
the tap. And as tap water continues to be vilified, and the other solutions
aren’t convenient, there is a market of UNPACKAGED, TRUSTED water that is
prime for explosive growth.

www.findtap.com / apps in Android and App store (Search "Tap Water").

Lastly, check out the #DrinkDifferent movement on Instagram at @FindTap. Join
us with a 30 day pledge to skip plastic bottles.

Ps. We're hiring. Hit me up siruva07 at gmail dot com if wanna learn more.

~~~
wyclif
Asked this in another thread, but putting here so you see it. What is the
current scientific basis for the vilification of tap water? How unsafe or
dangerous is it?

------
floatingatoll
The headline is misleading: the ‘crisis’ in the headline is in the drinks
industry.

If you’re here for the environmental crisis rather than the drink industry
crisis, cigarette filters remain the highest volume plastic waste.

~~~
presidentender
Cigarette filters are cellulose acetate, which is biodegradable.

~~~
TimesOldRoman
18 months to 10 years, according to the first Google response.

I see no reason regulation to enforce like a 6-month breakdown time on a
product. Seems very sensible.

They shouldn't be able to release products that are unhealthy for the
environment.

------
jeklj
I don’t understand the focus specifically on water bottles when this comes up,
seems like any drink bottle would be just as problematic. I understand we
don’t all have pipes that bring Coca-Cola to our homes, but when you’re out
and need something to drink that ship has sailed.

~~~
TimesOldRoman
It's purly cultural, driven by consumerism. Buy a nalgene....we can do better.

People should know that they are going to get thirsty at some point.

~~~
Eridrus
The "everyone should change their way of life" approach to environmentalism
hasn't worked and has been quite divisive, why do people continue to think it
is an effective strategy?

~~~
CalRobert
Because the alternative is ultimately "Everyone probably won't get to stay
alive". Which is a pretty big change in one's way of life.

Also, using cans instead of bottles isn't exactly a major shift in most
people's life. It's infinitely recyclable (unlike plastic), something nature
knows how to deal with (unlike plastic) and often better for the beverage (in
the case of beer at the very least).

~~~
dmm
The alternative is the government intervening to internalize externalities.
For example, a revenue neutral carbon tax or deposits on food/drink
containers.

~~~
CalRobert
This is actually a better approach. But it's extremely hard politically. If we
did this gas would be 12-20 USD a gallon, and we'd have a better world.

~~~
jki275
Easy to say from an ivory tower, but in the real world people have to get to
work every day.

~~~
CalRobert
Which is why I realize it's a political nonstarter. I think we're in
agreement.

~~~
jki275
Yeah -- in an ideal world everyone could afford to live near where they
worked.

~~~
CalRobert
One way to encourage just that sort of city planning is, in fact, to price
externalities appropriately. It's not actually cheaper to build and live in
sprawl, it's fantastically expensive. But we don't charge those costs based on
usage.

~~~
jki275
I can spend 400k to buy a nice four bedroom house with a garage and a basement
on half an acre sixty miles from work, or 400k to buy a beat down 1 bedroom
condo ten miles from work (nothing near the area where I work is under
900k)...

That's not really a city planning issue, it's just the way things are in
hyper-urban areas.

I hope so much that I can pull off a remote job in the next year or so --
believe me, I'd rather never drive if I could.

