Why does this exist?
Who among us wouldnât want to spend about $30 for about two gallons of water? 
The all mighty dollar. $$$
In case of an emergency!
But the little pouches can go in a 1st aid kit, you donât have to worry about someone drinking all the water out of your bottle when they just asked for a sip. Situations where the water supply suddenly gets contaminated. Now that I think about it, I can go on and on. But Iâll just end up convincing myself that I need these emergency water pouches. Because Woot.
These are meant to be on lifeboats and other emergency needs. They have a long shelf life, but do have an expiry date.
You can accomplish the same thing with much cheaper bottles of water. There are small, like, 4-8 oz. plastic bottles of water that you should be able to throw in or alongside any first aid kit (e.g. one youâd have in a car.) You can cycle out the water bottles (e.g. every month, 6 months, etc.) if youâre concerned about leaving plastic bottles sitting indefinitely (and you donât get to complain about âplastic wasteâ if youâre buying water in disposable pouches!) Or, you can just throw the bottles away after their âexpirationâ (water doesnât âexpire!â) because going with bottles is going to be far cheaper and more practical than tiny pouches of water!
$13.71/gallon
Datrex also makes survival rations for life boats, I imagine this is to compliment those. Iâm not sure why anyone would buy these over a couple 25-cent bottles of water unless youâre forced to work within government regulations for lifesaving equipment, though.
I get what youâre saying and I agree that in most situations a bottle is much more practical and economical. But in certain situations, where packing space is limited (say emergency kit on a boat) the design of a pouch is much more suitable and yes in certain situations many would pay more for the convenience of not having to swap out bottles.
This is more of a niche product vs extra bottles of water in the car or garage.
Agreed on the space consideration. Emergency kits for boats was my first thought. I accidentally ruined half the contents of two of those while transferring stuff in and out of winter storage and there were several burst water pouches amongst the casualties.
Survival.
As an aside, bottles of water in your car have a short shelf life. Most store-bought bottles are not up to the task, especially in the summer. Very unhealthy. Do your Google thing if you want to be careful.
Definitely keep them out of direct sunlight, and like I wrote, cycle them out if youâre concerned.
On the subject of shelf life, to play devilâs advocate, and not that Iâd buy them but:
Water bottles are typically some degree of transparent or translucent. So provided that the pouch doesnât allow any sunlight in, I imagine itâd massively inhibit any microbial growth and extent shelf life.
This item is âpackaged waterâ, and not subject to sales tax in Florida. I noticed that tax was collected. How can this be remedied? I attempted to contact support but only received a generic form letter in response.
Let me check in with CS on this. Thanks.
Youâve got it backwards: itâs UV radiation that provides the sterilizing effect (via DNA damage, which is why it kills bacteria, destroys viruses, and causes skin cancer, among other things.) Thatâs why you could leave things out in direct sunlight to sterilize them, and why these solid pouches would be less likely to have antimicrobial inhibition due to the effects of sunlight (although theyâre sealed anyways from outside contaminants) compared to a transparent container.
On the other hand, some materials, even though they are transparent to visible light, filter other wavelengths, e.g. IR or UV. In this case, common PET plastic bottles appear to filter the shorter-wavelength UV (which provides the desired sterilization) and not longer-wavelength UV. Also thereâs the subject of PET (or other materials) degrading in direct sunlight, so ultimately as I wrote earlier, keep your water and other supplies out of direct sunlight anyways.