Do the math - Taps for Starbucks.

The Sun's title is rather dramatic, since Starbucks paying for the water kind of rules out the "robbery" aspect. Still, 23.4 million liters per day is an incredible amount for a 'socially conscious' firm. With 10,000 stores around the world it means each store lets 2340 liters go down the drain every day.

For the metric-optional crowd, that's a bit shy of 618.5 gallons per day per store. Or almost 124 of those five-gallon bottles you see delivered to offices and the rooms of trendy college students. So the next time you buy a drink from Starbucks look for the little spigot and drain. Part of what you just paid is heading down that.

As a two-fer here, the Sun mentions that water could supply Namibia with all the drinking water it needs and then makes another reference to supplying Africans later in the same piece. While noble of the author, and an effective way of pulling at the heart strings of the audience, it's nonsensical from the shipping standpoint. 23.4 million liters is about 6.2 million gallons which is 22,504 tonnes of cargo - per day. The energy required to ship this water to Namibia (or anywhere) is naturally enormous and that's why we don't do it.

Ultimately the problem with water isn't that there is a shortage of it. The problem is it falls in the wrong places (at sea, in high mountains, deep in Siberia).