You do see it in cartons, though. But these are also (partially) embedded with plastics so not that much better.

I am from Austria, and here you can buy water in cans. It's not common, but lately, there are 2-3 brands that offer canned water, which you can find in a normal supermarket.

On the other hand, I've never seen water in cartons in my life.

But both cans and cartons are also lined with plastic on the inside, afaik.

I was seeing "When Chinese Industrial Espionage Goes Wrong" [1] some months age, industrial espionage related to the inside coatings of the cans. Quite interesting video.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ojlJoM0FE

Here in the southern United States, this brand of carton water is somewhat popular: https://boxedwaterisbetter.com/

Aluminum beverage cans are also lined with a thin layer of plastic that is sprayed inside after the can is formed. If they weren't this way, then acidic beverages would eat through the crazy-thin aluminum skin in fairly short order.

It's also one of the things that the beverage can manufacturing industry tests for. All aluminum beverage cans are tested optically to detect and reject individual cans with holes in the metal that light can penetrate, and spot tests are also done using brine and electricity to detect metal exposure due to an incomplete plastic coating inside of the can (which can result in cans being rejected in batches of tens-of-thousands at once).

(Given all of this, maybe we had it closer right with the returnable, reusable glass bottles that were previously used by the soda industry.)

Made me remember this old video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW_DhjbHC-U

no idea if it's still a thing or not though.

Here's an interesting canned water brand that's getting some popularity where I live: https://liquiddeath.com/

I still think it's too expensive though.

Liquid Death is a unicorn, with a valuation higher than Replit last I looked.

their whole thing is drinks. in cans.

Don't aluminum cans have a plastic liner?

AFAIK this depends on the acidity of the drink since carbonated drinks will destroy the can otherwise. Canned food has no such thing.

Btw Most canned foods do have some sort of liner, usually plastic.

I did not know that, I've mistakenly assumed that due to the risk of tin poisoning when opening the can.

And on top of that, not just drinks, but mainly water, and now they also have sparkling water and tea.

No idea how they did it, but mad props to them for somehow managing to make it this far on just water, and without backing of some other major beverage megacorp (like Coke or Pepsico), at least to my knowledge.

The name and brand styling are so atrocious though. Feels like an Ed Hardy t-shirt became a water bottle.

I agree, but they appear to be aware of the level of "cringe" their marketing puts out.

I'd say they're the Limp Biskit of beverage companies. They are all in on the stereotype, without shame, while simultaneously making fun of themselves for it.

Also seems like a status thing to have PET water.

I have next to zero idea what the appeal is but it really seems popular to be cruising around with water in a PET bottle.

I've used a re-usable double wall "Yeti" bottle for years and years, it's 100x superior to a plastic bottle, but yeah, the plastic bottles still win in popularity. I know of whole families who only drink out of PET bottles at home, ie they won't drink tap water, only from PET bottles. They go through tens of them a week.

Anyway my point is, I bet this news will have almost no effect on bottled water sales.

Everyone I know switches to sodastream for sparkling water and uses bottled water only when they have to have some non-sparkling water on the go. But sodastream still uses PET bottles, just more thick and reusable, so at least they don't have to buy so much bottled water.

I have one too, actually I do use PET bottles, but mostly because filling up isn't always easy. I get caught out sometimes and it's just easier to buy a drink.

Lifetime fitness sells a brand of water sold in a can in their cafe.

Voss sells water in glass, but it's a luxury good.

You sometimes see it, but mostly at events. Last time I had canned water was expo2020.

You can also get water in tetra pack paper containers. Again, I mostly see these at events where there is some reason to brand the water in an ecological fashion (had a pack that was imported from Norway to Dubai for cop28. I could really taste the sustainability in that one!)

What difference would that make?

https://bioplasticsnews.com/2020/07/22/cans-sustainable-plas....