vended

Tokens are required at the bar, annoyingly vended by machines.

Instead, I returned to a newsroom soon stripped of cubicles, where chewing gum became a peppy communal experience, thanks in part to noise-canceling headphones and A.D.A.-accepted Extra spearmint vended from a machine by the restrooms at $2 a pop.

“We’ve worked with communities that pay up to 10% of their monthly income on water,” she said, referring to places where people pay for vended or bottled water on top of what they spend on the unclean water pumped into their homes.

A lot of the people who are dependent on vended water don’t have cars, so it is hard for them to actually access it, he said.

Vended water is cheaper than individually sealed, store-bought bottles, but many times more expensive than tap water.