Yes, contrary to commonplace assumptions regarding urban waterworks, New York City’s tap water has been judged to be the best-quality H2O around. I go along with this, which is why I’ve never had any compunction about drinking the stuff straight.

But buying that quality in popular bottled form? I don’t think so. That’s what Tap’dNY is trying to sell, for $1.50, and with an interesting angle:

The company draws its product from the city’s public water system and purifies it using reverse osmosis.

[Tap’dNY founder Craig] Zucker says his company is a for-profit business with a message - that water should be “kept honest and local.” He says shipping water into New York from places like Fiji and France is an insult to the city.

So Tap’dNY is positioning itself as a think-global-act-local concern, with a minimal carbon footprint. Only one problem: The packaging. Those plastic bottles are a bigger problem, ecologically, than the water source — because they’re petroleum-based and non-biodegradable. Because of this, Tap’dNY is not much greener than any other bottled-water pusher.

Still, I detect a good amount of spunk from this company, as displayed via its hip “Truth in Hydration” corporate blog. Since they seem open to innovation, maybe they’d like to get off the bottle and consider my canned bottled water idea. Consumers love the convenient portability of the plastic, but a cutting-edge hydrator like Tap’dNY could help change attitudes among five-borough intelligentsia; and from there, the rest of the world would follow. Dare to dream…