Question of the Week: Why do you drink bottled water or tap water?
Posted on July 7th, 2008 - 10:30 AMEach week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.
Most Americans have safe tap water and drink tap water fresh from the kitchen faucet. Others choose to buy more expensive bottled water. But bottling and transporting water can carry environmental costs and use energy and resources, and bottles contribute to littering if not properly disposed of.
Why do you drink bottled water or tap water?
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En español: Cada semana hacemos una pregunta relacionada al medio ambiente. Por favor comparta con nosotros sus pensamientos y comentarios. Siéntase en libertad de responder a comentarios anteriores o plantear nuevas ideas. Preguntas previas.
Muchos estadounidenses tienen agua potable sana y beben agua fresca del grifo de la cocina. Otros optan por comprar agua embotellada más cara. Sin embargo, el embotellar y transportar agua conlleva costos medioambientales y el uso de energía y recursos. Asimismo, las botellas contribuyen a los desperdicios si no se desechan adecuadamente.
¿Por qué toma agua embotellada o del grifo?
Tags: bottled water, safe drinking water, tap water
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Question of the Week
July 7th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Living in Portland, Oregon, tap water is just fine for my tastebuds. The water quality is good and the city has really cool “Bensen Bubblers”, public drinking fountains, to quench my thirst on the go. Speaking of, accessibility of water might be a factor in my decision. I can imagine if it is easier to buy bottled than fill up from a tap, then it would be more desireable too.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am
At home, I almost always drink tap water. The exception is that I rarely drink bottled water when I already have it at home. I occasionally buy bottled water in 1 L bottles to drink outside the house. The advantage here is that I can drink out of a large bottle without having to lug it home and refill it when I’m done.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Bottled water only for me….Gloucester water is unpalatable….
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Carley reply on August 1, 2008 9:05 pm:
Have you tried filtering it?
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:31 am
We drink bottled water simply taste, tap water is OK if left out for the Chlorine to evaporate but what a hassle. We have bottled water delivered to minimize plastics consumption.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I drink tap water. It’s cheaper and if using a filter, just as tasty.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Is the tap water safe? That is the question!
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waterman reply on July 24, 2008 6:55 pm:
Do your own research!!!!! It is true that water from the tap is safe from a bacterial standpoint because of the chlorine, however, the levels of chlorine allowed in the US are 8 times higher than what the WHO(World Health Organization) and WCC (World Chlorine Council) recommend. The WHO and WCC recommend a 0.5 mg/L limit. The US allows 4.0 mg/L, yes 4!!!!!!!
I have filtration to rid my families water of chlorine due to its harmful long-term effects. Do the research, it is right there!! Chlorine is already proven to cause bladder and various cancers. Maybe you don’t drink the water from the tap, I hear this often, but…. you shower and bath in the water. Over 70% of the chlorine enters our body through our skin(bathing) or steam inhalation(shower)!! PS- the only bottled water that is Not tap water is filtered through reverse-osmosis! Look for all 0’s in the daily values, everything else is tap!!!
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robbins reply on August 1, 2008 12:47 pm:
All about what we call acceptable risk. I personally do not consider the risk by chlorine
I also doubt chlorine has been “proved” to cause various cancers in the context of your statement, or would argue naturally occuring chemicals (the world is nothing but chemicals) in food have been “proved” in the context you state it.
Zero doesn’t exist….every thing is present if you look at low enough levels.
Sorry for sounding crabby….but when we worry about one in a multi million events, then regularly accept much higher risks in society (like living in a city, letting teenagers drive, go to a hospital, cross the street, gain weight….on and on), well….I have also said the most of the public readily accepts the risk of death, and long as it is a “green” death.
PS….I don’t like chlorine in water either, I let it evaporate before I drink the tap water. I don’t swim in pools either….don’t like the chlorine.
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Anonymous reply on November 4, 2008 2:38 pm:
It isnt the chlorine that is causing the cancer. During the chlorination process, chlorine sometimes causes a chemical reaction with organic materials and other constitutes already in the water. This chemical reaction creates trihalomethanes (THM). It is the trihalomethanes that are cancer-causing, not the chlorine.
Also, bottled water isn’t as angelical as you make it sound. Aquafina and Dasani started out as companies that took tap water and put it into bottles, yet they brag about their commitment to making a better drinking water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I generally drink bottled water when I drink plain water which isn’t often. I absolutely hate drinking water but find the bottled water tastes better.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I re-fill any water bottle that I get with tap water that’s been sitting long enough to remove the Cl2 taste.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I drink tap water filtered through activated charcoal. Tap water is much cheaper than bottled water and tap water in my area is good quality.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I drink tap water for the most part wherever I go…….unless the faucet is in questionable condition.
Buying bottled water in my opinion is a total waste of $$. To pay $1 plus for something that might cost $.01 is absolutely ridiculous!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
My family uses the bottled water for its convenience when at the gym, while biking, or at sporting events and other outside activities. At home we drink tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I drink filtered or bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I drink tap 95% of the time - bringing my own water with me in reusable containers. However, I will drink bottled water if nothing else is available and soda/juice are the only other options. We have used bottled water at home on occasion when the local water system was under construction and available water was off color and flavor.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I don’t like the soda taste of the water here.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
It is true that bottled water can carry environmental costs and use energy and resources, and bottles contribute to littering if not properly disposed of. I’ve also done some research in regards of this topic and confirmed that it is safer to drink tap water than bottled water. In addition, In Sarasota County, drinking-quality water is reliably provided at the tap for about $6 per 1000 gallons. By comparison, a 16-oz bottle of bottled water costs about $1.50. That is approximately $12,000 / 1000 gallons, or 2000 times greater than the cost of tap water. But why most consumers still chooses to drink from the bottle? The answer is convenience.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I drink tap water because I appreciate the huge investment this country has made in infrastructure to provide all citizens with easy (cheap) access to clean drinking water. In my mind, there is no need to drink bottled water in this country. I also tend to think tap water (from public water supplies) is more closely scrutinized with regard to hazardous constituents (e.g., priority polluntants, etc.) than bottle water. And I don’t think there is any need to pay extra for bottled water as long as public water supplies in this country continue to be available and dependably clean.
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DDayJuno reply on November 4, 2008 2:42 pm:
I agree with you. What is the point of whining and complaining and griping about the “dirty” water if no one wants to a) pay for research and new faucilities and b) actually USE the water when so much time and money went into supplying it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Tap water. Bottled water is a waste of energy and oil, to bottle it, manufacture the bottle and then ship the bottle to a store for someone to make a huge profit.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Only when I don’t have access to tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Mostly taste, but also convenience.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I drink bottled water because I can not stand to drink my “safe” tap water. In Las Vegas many neighborhood receive well water directly from a well field. The TDS of the water from my tap is over 800. This water is unsuitable for using in a dishwasher and tastes terrible to me. In Canada the TDS limit for potable water was set at 500 umhos. Here in the US the secondary standard is 1000. I think the Canadians are on to something.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Your description above is exactly why I elect to drink tap water…because it is safe and tastes good. In this case, there is no reason to spend the money or incur the environmental cost of bottled water. Even when I am out in public, I elect to obtain water from sinks or soda fountains rather than purchase bottled water.
Admittedly, when I visit southern coastal areas for business or vacation I tend to purchase bottled water. Not because I have a concern about the safety of the water, but because of the taste. The brackish, organic taste of water in these coastal areas causes me to purchase bottle drinking water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
At home I drink tap water. NYC’s tap water is among the best quality in the U.S. At work, I drink water from a water cooler with a bottle I re-use over and over. The water cooler water is colder and tastes better than the water in this building. We have funky pipes that render the water a strange taste. Out and about I drink bottled water rather than soda or other sugar-laden drinks. I will continue to drink bottled water until they pry them from my cold dead hands. It is healthier than soft drinks. I do my part for the environment, but removing bottled water from the market-place (if that is where it’s headed) is government run amok and it gives environmentalism a BAD BAD name. When society views environmentalists as extreme, short-sighted, or imposing extreme measures down their throats, all of the really good work that we do is tossed in the same negative pot. We need to be moderate and sensible in our approaches.
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DDayJuno reply on November 4, 2008 2:47 pm:
I agree with you about the fact that bottled water is probably infinitly better than sodas and things of that sort, but what I do not like about bottled water is that people seem to see it as an alternative to tap water. So many tax dollars are being spent on improving the US’s water system, and yet people still insist on buying their own over-priced water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I drink bottled because my tap water has the smell and taste of chlorine or something chemical. My boyfriend drinks tap and swears it tastes fine, and even sneaked some into a bottle, but I knew in one sip.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I drink tap water because our city water (Kennewick, WA) tastes fine. I used to have a water filter on our tap water when we lived in Acworth, GA, but when we moved to Kennewick I saw no need for filtering. And since the tap water was fine, I never felt the need to go to bottled water.
PS: I also looked into reverse osmosis (RO) but when I found out that the system filters and drains 5 to 9 gallons for every one gallon of drinking water, I thought, what a waste of water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I drink bottled water but prefer natural spring water from nearby springs to both. Why? Purely taste. I do not like the chemical or metalic taste that most tap waters have. I prefer the clean taste (no taste) to ice cold spring water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I always chose tap water over botttled water if I have an option. Cost is a huge issue., doing my bit to reduce the number of plastic bottles is another. Finally, I haven’t seen any evidence yet that bottled water is any better than tap water - and in some cases it is worse. We have spent millions of public dollars putting in infrastructure to provide Americans with a cheap, safe, and reliable supply of potable water - why not drink it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I don’t drink tap or bottled water. I have a reverse osmosis filter on my tap water. I do not believe that tap water is fit to drink. Judging by the way the filter looks when it is changed, I know there is much in the water I do not want to ingest. I do not think the laws that declare tao water “safe” are stringent enough.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Every 6-9 months, I buy a case of bottled water. I reuse the bottles, refilling them with filtered water from my tap. Tap water, especially in Texas at certain times of the year, has a funky taste. I like the convenience of carrying bottles, without the excess expense or the contribution to landfills that comes from using bottles just once. I trust the tap, but it tastes bad sometimes.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I drink bottled water because I’ve had the impression for years that tap water was not safe to drink (and tastes funny). I have in recent years become concerned about the use of energy and resources related to transporting and bottles that end up in the landfill. I’m still not comfortable that my tap water is safe and am considering purchasing water from a local health food store. This would require large reusable containers for storing the water and reusable bottles for drinking. So far all I’ve done is think about making this change - struggling with giving up the ‘convenience’ of the 20 oz recyclable bottles.
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DDayJuno reply on November 4, 2008 2:50 pm:
What a waste of money! You are honestly thinking of buying WATER from a HEALTH FOOD STORE? Please tell me you were kidding.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I drink bottled water because of the convenience while in my car or out enjoying recreational activities. I only drink water from my tap after it has been filtered because our tap water is heavily chlorinated, so heavy at times you can smell the chlorine.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Our water treatment plant is not up to par, even before Katrina and our waterbills come with a required disclosure about what is in the water to treat it. Our community’s intake is very close to the refinery’s discharge and twice we have had benzene in the water supply.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I drink bottled water for health reasons to be sure that I get my recommended 8 - 8 oz. per day and keep adequately hydrated. The water from our tap at work is very hard, has a sulfuric smell and doesn’t taste good. Also, the water at our cabin has a high iron content and is not good drinking water either. I am concerned about contaminated aquifers and the impact of drinking water from a well and its connection to many prevalent diseases in my local community such as cancer. I do brush my teeth with fluoridated water, but that is about it. I recycle my bottles, which I understand are then made into carpeting, preventing them from going into a landfill.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The bottles are a complete waste. We drink filtered tap water and use reusable containers. I think plastic seeps chemicals into the water and prefer to avoid those containers
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DDayJuno reply on November 4, 2008 2:53 pm:
Plastic water bottles actually do have a chemical that seeps into the water after several uses. Because of this, they become even more wasteful: you can’t use it twice because of health risks and if you use it just once, you are sending another plastic bottle to the landfill.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I drink tap water because it’s clean, safe, cheap and includes flouride.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
It quenches thirst better than anything else; it is inexpensive; it doesn’t waste bottles or paper cups/glasses; it doesn’t promote environmental problems; and, it tastes good.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I drink tap water because Denver’s water is safe and I don’t want to add to plastic in landfills. If I’m given a bottle of water, I refill it with tap water. Eventually I recycle the bottle.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Bottled water is a convenience. In this day and age, people make a more conscious effort to hydrate themselves. Water is healthier than soft drinks and fewer calories than juice. (Also in containers.) I keep bottled water in my car. I drink bottled water at meetings. Bottled water is distribted at sporting, music and other outdoor events to prevent dehydration and to cool people in the hot sun. With kids sports, we prefer to give them bottled water rather than have them all drink from the same bottle and ket hepatitis or some other communicable disease. Paper cups are cumbersome and you still have a trash issue.
Carrying your own containers of water are not as convenient and sanitary.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I think bottled water is a waste, but my daughter will not knowingly drink water out a tap. I have even done a double blind test with her and she could never identify the bottled water but she says any water she sees poured out of a tap tastes terrible.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
When I am thirsty I drink either bottled water or filtered water from our refrigerator door dispenser because I can taste the difference. I also reuse the bottles (fill with the filtered water) and then recycle them. If I just need a little bit of water to swallow a pill or rinse after brushing my teeth, I will use the tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I drink tap water at home and have since I was a child. My family follows suit. The only time we have bottled water is when we are traveling or need to carry water with us that is packaged more conveniently. From what I am told by my Sustainable Develoment group, it takes 280 times the energy to produce one bottle of water than to have a single glass of water from the tap?
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I use bottled water only for trips and those are refilled from the tap after cleaning.
Although our city water is considered safe I use a active carbon filter system to remove organics and chlorine from the water. I recycle the filters once they are spent.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I only drink bottled water. I do not know if it is better for me, but I prefer it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I only drink bottled water when I am not at home or work; such as camping or hiking. Most times my bottled water is 1 or 2 gallon size container that I pour into a cup or small “carry” container. I often fill gallon jugs and 16 oz bottles from the tap then take them with me. We have excellent water in central New York State and it doesn’t have the strange taste that is in a lot of bottled waters….and it costs $3.00 per 1000 gallons!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Tap Water. I know where it comes from (the river) and at what point it is taken. I know how it is ‘cleaned up’; what process it goes through and how it is tested. EPA publishes all quality tests freely on the web. There are a few cities here in Idaho where I would not drink the water because EPA has failed thier wells.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I drink both. I use a Brita filter at home and work, because I don’t like the chemical taste (mainly chlorine) in tap water. Sometimes, if I’m out and don’t have a water bottle with me, I will drink bottled water - also if it’s offered as an alternative to soda pop. By and large, I hate the taste of municipal tap water, and our building has rusty pipes.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I always drink tap water. I know the good quality of our nations tap water. There is no assurance of the quality of bottle water. No one is watching the quality of bottle water. Bottle is one of the greatest false hoods ever portrayed on the American public. People believe the false comments in bottle water ads on TV & radio. The tap water in the United States exceeds the water quality of any nation in the free world.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Actually I drink both. You could say I’m spoiled but I live in Poland Spring Maine right over the same aquifer that the water is extracted from by Poland Spring Bottling. My well is deep and taps the purest and best tasting water of any other I have ever tasted. I have to remind myself often of how blessed most of us are that we even have tap water that is safe to drink even if it’s not spring water. Water is actually my favorite (non-alcoholic) drink!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I do not buy/drink bottled water because I understand that bottling and transporting water can carry environmental costs and use energy and resources, and bottles contribute to littering if not properly disposed of. Instead, I installed a water filter in my kitchen, mounted under my sink, which removes Chlorine, Lead, Mercury, VOC’s, THM’s, MTBE and 100 other common tap water contaminants! It also filters out 99.99% of Chryptospordium and Giardia (chlorine resistant parasites). The total cost for my filtered drinking water is $2.00/week! No more bottled water for my family!
Here is a site that shows you what your options are - http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.net/WaterFilter_Comparison.cfm
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I drink tap water because it is safe and cheap. When people get sick they blame the water. I have read and seen more on food poisoning than contaminated drinking water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I boil tap water for 30 min and store it in gallon jugs in the fridge. I don’t trust bottled water and have visited our water treatment plant where I learned that most bottled water has more germs than our tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I drink tap water because I live in a town where the tap water is just as good as any bottled water. All of our water comes from artisian wells and is very good. However I did move from a city that chlorinated so heavily at times I definitely chose bottled water over the tap.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Uh, to prevent dehydration?
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I buy bottle water so that I can refill the bottle about 20 times before I dispose of the bottle. To me is sort of a refillable and ultimately disposable canteen.
I do believe that bottle water may be safer at times that tap water, especially if the tap water source is river. I don’t believe river water supplies can be consistanty free of trace impurities, especially during high runoff events.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Why does anyone want to spend up to $5 dollars a gallon for bottled water that is no better than tap water? Talk about vanity and insanity!! Besides it uses tons of oil to make the plastic bottles. If you’re worried about looking cool, just refill the designer water bottle with tap water and press on.
Let’s get our heads back on straight and start using common sense again.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I only buy bottled water at airports, because I can’t bring my own into the secured area or onto flights. I’m thinking of bringing an empty camping bottle through security and filling it from a water faucet in the rest room, however, as I’m concerned about environmental waste.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
What a stupid question!
The epa knows full well they don’t do the job our tax money pays you to do!
Most water is loaded with cancer causing substances such as PCB’s, DIOXIN, FLOURIDE, SEWAGE and on and on.
If you made sure these huge chem. co.’s cleaned up their act it would become a different America,,,,and you know it!
Cathy
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I drink tap water because it is incredibly inexpensive and MUCH more environmentally sound than bottled water.
I wish more people understood that tap water is more heavily regulated than bottled water and all the environmental impacts of transport and empty plastic bottles. If somebody thinks their tap water tastes bad, then buy a Brita filter.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
My husband is a civil engineer and specializes in water treatment, often as an expert witness. He’s informed me that treated water in the U.S. is as safe as you can get. Plus, in the city we live in the water actually tastes good! (Full disclosure, we do have an automatic filter in our refrigerator, but we still often drink right out of the tap - it tastes the same either way just colder out of the fridge.) Since it’s come to light that bottled water is often just plain tap water, we can’t imagine paying for what we already get, in addition to adding to the waste of the plastic bottles. The U.S. has the best water quality in the world for a reason. If you have water that’s been properly treated, there’s no reason to pay for bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Usually i drink out of the tap. However, I just moved to Washington DC and plan to drink bottled water because i have been told by friends and the media that DC water isn’t the best due to high levels of lead and many other harmful toxins.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
taste, mostly; i can smell and taste the chlorine and chloride placed in tap water (i don’t have a water softener but my parents do and the water tastes lousy). I need to get in those 8 c./day and if i don’t like the taste, i won’t drink it. At home and at work i drink from a filtered pitcher/machine, respectively. Finally, i lived in Milwaukee during the cryptosporidium outbreak and learned a great deal about the limits of municipal water filtration — fortunately, i lived on the north side, not the south side where the filtration plant failed to properly clean the municipal tap water and several of my friends got sick.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
My family has chosen to drink tap water for several reasons, including the reduction in plastic waste and the misappropriation of resources. On the other hand, we are very concerned about the containers we store the tap water in to carry it around with us. The leaching of chemicals from reusable plastic bottles has urged us to consider the purchase of bottles that are BPA-free such as the CamelBak Better Bottle.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I drink bottled or filtered water usually. It is not always convenient to filter (if not at home etc.), so I drink bottled as a substitute. The reason is simple; taste, smell and appearance. As an environmental scientist I understand that the three sensations may be more subliminal than realistically essential for good quality drinking water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Our tap water is perfectly safe and economical. Buying bottled water is a complete waste of money and is not enviromentally sound as you imply because of the energy wasted hauling it around to the market place. Lots of bottled water is only tap water put into a plastic bottle. We need to conserve energy and water in the southeast where we are currently in a dought of significance.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Our family utilizes tap water, when we can. However, when we are on the go will use bottled water. We use bottled water as a replacement for other bottled drinks. On occaisson we will use refillable water jugs for day trips, but if it is an overnight trip we will almost always use bottled water.
While public water may be safe, it may not always taste or smell the same. On our travels we have had what that smells of sulphur or chlorine. Other places the water may have a moldy after taste. We find this to be true of smaller rural areas more so than the larger cities. You can always count on bottled water to be consistant, no matter wher eyou are.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Although we drink filtered water, we buy large quantities of bottled Italian sparkling water from Whole Foods or Central Market. We do recycle the bottles after use.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
My city’s water supply is softened at a treatment plant, however, even before it was I still drank my water from the tap. I dislike using bottled water because of the excess waste from the bottles and because I do not note a marked difference between the water from a bottle and the water from my tap. I’ve been drinking from the faucet for as long as I can remember, and I don’t have any health problems to speak of, so I assume that it’s reasonably okay for me to continue.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
actually, I reuse the bottled water bottles over many times (they are convenient) and just keep refilling them with tap water and restocking the ‘frig
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Why would anyone pay a thousand times more for bottled water that is absorbing chemicals from the plastic the longer it sits on the shelf than drinking water from the tap? Except for a few cities, most Americans have access to wonderfully good water. I have been drinking tap water and will continue to do so unless it’s an emergency.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The taste of water is the largest factor in choosing where I get my water. I want to drink tap water. In Western MA, tap water is delicious! I recently moved to Baltimore, MD and the tap water right outside the beltway is not very tasty - mostly chlorine and minerals. Instead of buying bottled water, we purchased a PUR pitcher with a spout, and simply use this to filter out the “icky” taste. It cost $24.00 and the water is delicious. No waste, and the pitcher itself can be recycled if and when it gets too old to keep using.
CEF
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Convenience, but we need to reduce the overall impact of bottled water. The amount of funds expended on bottle water could install fresh water supplies do not exist.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I drink both. I prefer bottled water sometimes because of its mobility. However, I was wash my bottles and reuse them many times. After I decide to dispose of them, I do recycle. If I am at home, I drink tap water, which I filter.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Why do we want to single out bottled water as an environmental threat?? I see many more Pepsi and Coca Cola bottles along side the road than bottled water containers.
Bottled water is a healthy choice for consumers and does not deserve this singling out for attack, especially by the EPA. It is more stingently tested than municipal drinking water (Fact, see Title 21 vs Title 22 in Code of Federal Regulations), and offers a convenient and healthy choice for an on the go society. As far as an impact on water resources, it is miniscule in what it withdraws from our resources. Please publish the amount of water used by Coca Cola or Pepsi to produce their products.
Let’s educate people on the facts and the truth.
Thank you.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I prefer filtered tap water. I have lived in areas where the tap water was not safe to drink, so I grew accustomed to filtering it, and still do, even though I live in a “safe zone” for now. However, that safe zone is near Philadelphia where a large amount of pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water. I don’t wish to take any risks. Bottled water is something I purchase only when I need a drink of water and have no way of filtering the tap water available to me. I do not buy bottled water for my home because of environmental reasons, although I also don’t believe that bottled water as pure as advertised.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Convenience, but we need to reduce the overall impact of bottled water. The amount of funds expended on bottle water could be used to install fresh water facilities and supplies where none exist.do not exist.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I drink tap water whenever possible and avoid bottled water. First, because overall, it’s safer as bottled water must run through additional piping and bottling equipment which provides many opportunities fro microbiological contamination to occur and secondly, the waste generated by the plastic bottles. Also, what a great marketing scheme when we have “brain-washed” many to pay what was until recently, way more than gas for what flows safely and at a fraction of the cost, from the tap!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I drink bottled water usually when I’m out traveling or during outdoor recreational activities. At my home which is on a Indian Rancheria the water is not safe to drink as it would be from a larger municipal water treatment facility. So I elect to purchase my water from a filtered water dispensing station in town in five gallon water bottles for the cooler at my home. I do recycle my bottles, in fact I drive a 12 mile stretch of rural road to my Rancheria. Where once a week I pick up any recyclables that have been littered from vehicles. Although I am leaning more towards purchasing glass bottled drinks since they have less of an environmental impact footprint.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I drink tap water from my refrigerator when at home. Bottled water is convient when packaged to transport. I do not buy bottled water unless I’m away from home or someone buys it for me.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
When I used to live in south Jersey, I drank water from the tap. Now that I live in northern Jersey, I buy 5-gallon jugs of water for drinking water at home. The water that comes out of the tap has a strong chlorine odor and taste, making it undesirable.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Bottled water is convenient when away from home. Too many reports of contaminated water, e-coli, bad taste etc reduce people’s confidence in drinking water outside their home. However, to reduce the amount of bottles in landfills, my family tries to refill non-disposable bottles from the tap at home and take them with us on the road… definitely less convenient but more resource conscience.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I prefer to rely on the QA testing of some bottled water bottlers than municipal sources usually meeting USEPA guidelines for some organic and inorganic compounds and microorganisms.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The water coming out of my faucet tastes great, better than any bottled water I have ever sampled. However, if I am away from home, ordering food where the only beverage choices are soft drinks or bottled water, I will always opt for the bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I drink tap water! The water quality in my area is very poor so we have a filter and separate drinking water spigot. I think drinking bottled water is extremely wasteful, environmentally damaging, and I’m totally against it!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
tap water, but I reuse other’s empty water bottles during excercise.
While I suspect bottled water may be a bit cleaner (says my chemistry background)….I would consider any risk benefit to not be significant.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I drink tap water. However, bottles with caps are very convenient to carry around without spilling them! So, I occassionally buy a case of bottles and recycle them by refilingl them from the tap. When the bottles wear out, become dented, I buy a new case.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I drink filtered tapwater because it is free. Problems with bottled water: I have to discard a plastic bottle, I don’t know the source of the water, I have to pay for it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Bottled water is a convenient way to bring water with you - whether going to a meeting or recreational activities. I used to frequently reuse bottles until I read so much about the chemicals that can leach from the plastics. Glass, of course, would be great - but it is heavy and breakable - so not as convenient. Stainless steel is heavier and bulky, and aluminum apparently carries some potential toxicity risks. Relying on water fountains here and there (safe drinking water or not) is the issue for me, not the ‘designer’ water contents. Another benefit of the plastic is that it is inexpensive, so you can just toss it (recycle it) if it is not convenient to keep one for reuse…
If we had safe, reusable, light, inexpensive, non-breakable bottles for water and liquids, I’d be using them all the time!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I prefer tap water. It tastes fine, it meets the requisite standards, and there’s no plastic-bottle waste. When traveling, I do sometimes drink bottled water, but rarely. I would support taxes (or higher taxes) on individual-sized bottled beverages, including but not limited to bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
We live in South Florida where the tap water tastes horrendous despite the filtration systems they use due to tanic influences. Bottled water is convenient, cold, not luke warm in the summer for what we get out of the tap. In Virginia and Idaho I only drank tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Bottled water only serves a useful purpose when a potable water source is not available. The rest of the time, this has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever promoted but obviously has been quite profitable. Speaks to the power of marketing to a gullible public. Want to solve a large part of the current energy problem?? - Drink tap water! Consider the amount of fuel expended hauling water from a bottling plant through warehousing and distribution and ultimately to the consumer. How about the amount of fuel expended to manufacture all the plastic bottles then haul them to the dump. A program to enlighten the general public as to the wastefulness of the practice of drinking bottled water is needed but somehow I doubt they really give a …. as it has become a habit drivin by advertising not good science.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
When I’m home I drink tap water, in our area it is very high quality.
When I camp I freeze bottled water to keep my food cold and drink it as it thaws.
When I am out and about I recently started buying a bottle of water vs. a bottle of Diet Coke.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
People have become too dependant on their bottles of water. Hey, here’s an idea, how about you have a glass of tap water before you leave the house instead of toting a bottle around with you?! I think it’s great how some cities, like San Francisco, have put a ban on bottled water. I like to use a filter (like Brita) to take out some impurities including chlorine and improve the water taste. I was happy to learn that these filters remove only trace amounts of fluoride so that the water can continue to protect kids’ teeth.
I feel bad when I purchase San Pellegrino… the carbon footprint to get that glass bottle of water to my house from Italy is staggering compared to the cost of filling up a glass of tap water. I consider it a “delicacy” and enjoy it sparingly. I guess one thing is for sure: everyone should be drinking more water… it’s good for you!
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I drink both tap and bottled. Though, I have been encouraged to believe bottled water is safer. How did I come to this—watching commercials. I am sure the tap is just as safe but it something about “spring” water being on the bottle. I have relatives that still boil their water and refrigerate it. They believe this is the best thing to do.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I’m all for limiting the disposable plastic water bottle. However, most public drinking fountains (they’re called Bubblers here) are disgustingly dirty looking - who knows what microbes lurk on the surfaces.
What really drives me nuts is the airlines. They won’t let you carry a bottle of water even if the seal is unbroken. Once you are inside the security gate, the vendors there know they have you over a barrel and charge $3-$5 for a stinkin’ drink of water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Drink Tahoe Tap!
The Tahoe Water Suppliers Assocation is promoting drinking local municipal water this summer with the ” Drink Tahoe Tap ” campaign.
The campaign focuses on reducing solid waste, and fostering an appreciation for some of the finest drinking water in the USA - coming out of Lake Tahoe.
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July 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I drink tap water whenever I can, and I bring a small water cooler when I’m outside where there is no tap. Although I avoid it when I can, there are still times when it is simply much more practical to drink bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I think that people need to start drinking their tap water, because we’re getting so adapted to drinking bottle water that we are drinking it more and more often. The bottles are wasteful and since you cannot make a 10 cents profit from recycling, a small amount of people recycle them. I think that people should learn to drink their tap water and either re-use waterbottles or just use a cup. Think before you do.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Producing a 17-ounce bottle of water results in 100 times more greenhouse gas emissions than if a person was to drink the same amount of tap water from a glass or ceramic cup.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Way back in the late 1980’s, I believe it was a TV news reporter that pulled about twelve different brands of bottled water off the shelves in Tampa Florida and had them analyzed. Using the same water sample tests for municipal water systems, over half of them failed with Total Coliform and one or two with E. Coli. Albeit most of the brands were local, all of the bottle water companies did not have to conform to the State and Federal standards for safe drinking water. Same thing applies today, the standards for bottle water, filtered or “spring water” are so much lower than the national standards. Also what is the first thing they bring in after a disaster such as a hurricane, is bottled water.
Even after the municipal system has flushed, sampled and proved it is back up and running with clean drinking water, one still can see the pallets of bottled water stacking up. I for one do not drink bottled water when there is municipal water available.
Jim Bozek
Waterworks Superintendent
Southwest Water Co.\ City of Gulfport
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I drink both tap water and bottled water. The bottled water is more for convenience and taking in the car for raod trips. Tap water is heavily regulated and I consider it safe to drink. In addition, your water company throuhg their Consumer Confidence Reports are required by law to disclose any problems or violations with the water system.
I would caution those on well or spring water to get their water tested occasionally for colifomr bacteria. Also, don’t trust those roadside springs which are not regulated.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
My family drinks RO water. We refill readily availible plastic bottles every day. We do not like to see the waste of these bottles, so we reuse. We must drink RO water since our water out here in the desert is very high in TDS and alkalinity.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I’ve always drunk tap-water because I grew up in a city that had clean great tasting water. My uncle was a great water drinker and would always taste water in new places and deliver a verdict - the water is good (or bad) here! This always puzzled me because I always thought that water is water - but as has been echoed in the other responses on the Blog, water has different tastes and smells; depending on its source. Nowadays, I drink filtered water that sits in my fridge at home and water from a bottle at work. When I travel, I buy bottled water, not just to be on the safe side, but because I like to drink it cold!
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Mostly I drink filtered water out of the dispenser in my refrigerator. It is cold, tastes good and handy. Occasionally I drink bottled water but that is less than once a month. I am mindful of filling our landfills with unnecessary plastic. If I need water when I’m out and about, I fill my own container from the fridge. It’s cheaper and tastes just fine.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I drink bottled water at work for convenience and consistency (only alternative is to use a drinking fountain that’s old and dirty). I drink bottled water when traveling to avoid digestive upsets previously suffered before bottled water was available that were caused by “strange” tap water. I usually don’t drink bottled water at home although when our treatment system is acting up and the water tastes especially bad, I will use it to avoid the unpleasantness (we have well water and it’s lousy in quality, even though it’s safe, I think).
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I use to drink bottled water, but because of the cost and the enviornmental consequenses, I now drink water from the tap. Occasionaly I will buy a bottle of water just for convience sake, if I am traveling.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I have found that a lot of people do not like the taste of tap water. I personnally drink from the tap and if outside working have no problem drinking from the hose even with the concerns listed for dangers of using the hose. I make a lot of tea, gatorade, lemonade, etc and use tap water if for the reasons of hiding the taste of the tap water. I do not like the use of plastic and instead prefer glass. The public is screaming about the cost of fuel but forget the plastic they are drinking out of comes from oil. Plastic is safer from a safety side but not an enviromental side. Cut down the use of plastic and go back to glass. Whatever is in glass tastes better and we can use the basis for plastic (oil) to put to better uses.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Twice filtered, softened, filtered again, and refrigerated tap water primarily, for several reasons: 1. family heritage gifted us with a disease for which we must avoid a certain mineral; 2. the local water supply frequently exceeds the permissible levels for coliform and other health hazardous contaminants; 3. the local water tastes and smells terrible from many other contaminants, that while not health hazardous, just are undesirable (heavy iron, heavy CaCO3, sulphur, etc.). We take care to wash and sanitize the water bottles we reuse to take water in our lunch, in the car, etc. after every use. We also make certain to wash and sanitize our water filter pitcher at least weekly and to change the filters on time. We use the NSF-certified sanitize cycle on the dishwasher while we wash a full load to clean the bottles, caps, and pitcher parts, so it isn’t something special or out of our way to do, and it makes this worrywart mother/biologist/chemist feel better about combating the coliform and other beasties showing up in the local water, while not contributing more plastic bottles to the landfills.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Bottled Water at the job site and during exercise. Convience and unsanitary water fountains. At home I am happy with the taste and smell of tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I prefer tap water and don’t buy bottled water often, but I don’t particularly disapprove of bottled water. I would like to see more truth in advertising about water sources and awareness building for the public to give municipal water fair treatment and to encourage responsible consumerism. For example, we don’t need to be importing water from Fiji or Europe, however needy their economies may be.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I buy water mostly when I fail to plan ahead. I forget to grab the bottle out of the fridge before heading to soccer or baseball practice. I have been trying harder than usual to plan ahead because purchasing water is an unnecessary expense. When I do purchase bottled water, I refill them over and over again usually until the bottle is destroyed or lost.
I do not like the taste of my city’s tap water, but I installed a under-the-sink filter years ago and my employer provides water filters.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Tap but filtered through a pitcher
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Cooling water or even freezing the water for months cannot kill off all the bacteria. That is why the EPA and all State Health Departments issue a “Boil Water Notice” when there is a water main break or low pressure event. Boiling not cooling or freezing kills off most or all harmful ‘bugs’ in the water for drinking.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I come from NYC where the source of our water is hundreds of miles away, from the watersheds of the Catskills Mountains. Although our tap water is not filtered before reaching us, NYC tap water remains one of the nation’s cleanest and delicous water.
This has only been possible, unfortunately, by inhibiting land development in upstate NY so that our water is as least contaminated as possible. For years, this has been unfair to the people of the Catskill community since they too, wish to develop for the growth of their economy.
Buying bottled water generates more waste than drinking tap (plastic, fuel, etc.) Also, as seen above, if one population has access to clean drinking water, that usually means that another community doesn’t, simply because resources are finite.
This country needs more stringent laws against Clean Water Act violaters so that more people can be given the option to drink safe safe ground and surface water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Because the Howell City Water tastes terrible –
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
When I’m home in Raleigh, North Carolina, I drink tap water. But when I visit the community where I grew up — Hometown, Pa. — I drink only bottled water, as does my family who still lives there. That’s because the local public drinking water reservoir is located less than a mile downhill from the McAdoo Associates Superfund site, a former chemical waste dump and incineration facility, as well as the adjacent Northeastern Power Co. waste-coal-fired power plant. According to NEPCO’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2006, the facility dumped to the air more than 100,000 pounds of toxic chemicals including lead, mercury, and hydrogen fluoride. The rural community situated along the reservoir has experienced an unusually high incidence of polycythemia vera, a rare blood cancer, and the ATSDR has confirmed an unusually high rate of PV locally. Despite the obvious risks these facilities present to the reservoir, the EPA has never undertaken any comprehensive testing to see whether the water quality has been affected by all the historic and ongoing toxics dumping. My father drank that water from our tap for most of his life; when he was in the hospital dying of kidney cancer almost 10 years ago, his last words to me were, “Don’t drink the water.” So I honor his wishes.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I filter my water at home (and am careful to replace the filter as often as the manufacturer recommends) and put that jug in the fridge so it’s nice and cold. It is not wasteful of resources and tastes great. As others have said I freeze water bottles for on-the-go icepacks and to drink afterwards. I do recycle the plastic bottles.
I am worried about the BPAs in plastics, but currently, I am more worried about (so I avoid) heating drink/food in a plastic container vs. freezing it. Is there a scientist who can tell me if we should avoid freezing plastic water bottles? THANKS!
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Tap–filtered at the tap by an attached Pur filter–at home, and tap filtered with a pitcher at work. Tap is more stringently controlled than bottled, and far and away less of a burden in terms of transportation and packaging, but we do filter given that most municipalities’ water treatment may not take out everything that carbon filtration can, and because emerging contaminants are largely unknown, and thus municipalities may not be prepared to handle them.
We have a small (2 gal?) container with a faucet that we keep in the fridge. We fill it with filtered water from the tap nightly so that it’s chilled the next day, and with the idea that water use during the day–especially evening dish washing–would clear out anything that would settle during the night.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
P.S. Even though the water coming from the tap can smell strongly of chlorine and byproducts at times, I find that the filtraiton takes it all out.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
We have been drinking bottled water but are planning to switch in a few weeks to tap with a filter. Municipal water at the plant meets standards set by the EPA. However, after the treated water leaves the plant, it has to go thru our aging infrastructure and older plumbing systems before it finally comes out the tap. The piping could be concrete, lead, galvanized or pvc in which can contain heavy metals and other chemicals that can leach into water.
Bottled water would be good if there isn’t a choice, as in the case of some developing countries where there are naturally occuring arsenic in the ground water or other toxins.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
At home, we have a water filter on our faucet and it works great because our city water has a strange taste to it. Since installing this, we have not bought any bottle water unless it was needed for a family event in which bring your own bottle was not an option. At work, I have started the “go green” program for my company and we had encourged everyone to bring their own cup from home and not use the styrofoam cups that are provided. This has cut down on our styrofoam cup usage.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I drink tap water. It seems that bottled water does not satisfy my thirst.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Tap. We filter the water as it comes into the house. We filter it again at the tap. We store our water in glass jars in the fridge. We carry stainless steel canteens when we need water out of the house. Plastic bottles are not the safest thing to store water in in the first place, especially after they are opened. Plastic is permeable.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The safest, and most ecofriendly, bottle I have found is the Sigg bottle. Made of aluminum, it also has a BPA-free liner. It’s fairly light, dentable-but-durable, and only costs $20 at any hiking store. On the other hand, Nalgene and Camelback started making BPA-free lexan bottles, too (plus, they’re easier to clean). Many plastic bottles that we drink from contain BPA - which is a known endocrine disruptor. Whether scientists agree or not regarding the health hazards of plastic - I avoid it to be safe. Also, reusing plastic bottles often leads to a large amount of bacteria growth, which is difficult to clean due to the shape.
I only drink tap water because bottled water tastes like plastic (maybe because it’s been sitting in cheap plastic for months prior), so it’s hard to find something light and convenient. With a small investment, a reusable bottle pays for itself
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
The people in my community and the adjoining one have creosote and components of cresote in our groundwater and soil. We fear it could have gotten in the city water pipes as well since the pipes are old and could be cracked. We have asked for the water to be tested and it was once by the state health dept. but we do not trust them or any other state agency. They have lied to us too many times. EPA has not had our drinking water tested by an authorized specialist, although we have asked repeadily for it to be done so we could feel confident in dring the tap water. Is the tap water safe? We don’t know.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I drink tap (fortunately, our water supply is some of the nation’s best, cleanest water) and I use a filter pitcher– and carry a reusable water bottle. In my region, with the wonderful water sources, I don’t understand why people would buy bottled. On occasion– traveling, at a race, etc– I will use/buy bottled water, but I try to avoid the unnecessary expense. It should always be available for those who don’t have good sources, emergencies, etc. I don’t drink soda or other types of sugar beverages, so it is nice to have the option.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Tap water, its cheaper and the environmentally friendly thing to do.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
We have installed a reverse osmosis system in our house so that we can feel better about drinking the tap water. When on the go, I try to use a BPA free container. I am concerned that all of the synthetic chemicals being thrown at us from a multitude of sources is contributing to health problems (ranging from auto-immune diseases like lupus to behavioral health issues like ADHD in children). And knowing that personal care products and pharmaceuticals cannot be removed from our drinking water, I try to avoid drinking tap water when at all possible. I wish it were as simple and cost effective to avoid the hormones and antibiotics in our food!
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The water supply for our home is an individual well. Each summer when the irrigation canal behind our house is filled with water, it drives quickly through the channels in the cracked basalt rock under our neighborhood and carries bacteria into our groundwater. The upstream lands drain droppings from wildlife and cattle into the canal, and without treatment, the bacteria and other living contaminants likie algae can grow in our groundwater and water system. After a couple of years of using the conventional method of sterilization (pouring chlorine bleach into our well and running it into all our home pipes and letting it sit for 24 hours), and having the contamination resurge, we installed a UV treatment system. It was much simpler than a chlorine treatment system and carries less risk of the chemical getting too strong. It has a particulate filter to make sure the UV light reaches all bacteria and viruses in the water; there is a lot of mud that accumulates in the filter. Nevertheless, if the system were to break down, the first notice we would get would be becoming ill, so we tend to limit the amount of water we drink from the tap.
Chlorine used to treat drinking water can react in water lines and create trihalomethanes, which I understand are carcinogens. Additionally, cities which treat their water with fluorine are adding a chemical that can have adverse health effects for many people. Since fluorine is only needed in low concentrations for children for strengthening teeth, while too much can actually weaken teeth, it carries health risks to many people, why should we be putting an unnecessary chemical into our drinking water systems? I can understand people avoiding drinking tap water that contains these chemicals.
Some communities (such as Orlando, Florida) have terrible tasting city water.
As to the so called environmental impact of water bottles: Why is bottled water any worse than bottled cola drinks, root beer, and other soft drinks? Worse than bottled beer? Worse than bottled milk? The plastic bottles that drinks come in compress flat in landfills and take up almost no room, compared to (say) phone books and newspapers and packaging for food and other items we buy every day. What is more, the materials in the bottles are not lost; at some future date, when we need feedstock for plastics, we will be able to mine them from landfills.
Using reusable containers has the same environmental impacts as washing glasses: It uses a lot of water, it uses energy to heat the water, and it uses chemical detergents that add to the sewage load of our wastewater. While the energy and environmental costs of bottled water are mostly pre-use, the energy and environmental impact of reusabler containers are after use, and after EVERY use.
The convenience of bottled water is a factor in encouraging drinking water INSTEAD of soda pop. Compared to sugared soft drinks, and all the stuff in diet drinks, how can bottled water be worse, rather than better? There should be a campaign to cut back on soft drinks, and encourage water drinking. Filling water bottles when you are traveling away from home is a risky business, and time consuming. Additionally, bottled water is a convenient way to transport, store and distribute water in a way that does not transmit disease from one person to another who would otherwise be drinking from the same non-temporary container. In disaster areas hit by floods and storms and earthquakes, bottled water is far more trustworthy than containers filled from taps.
The ordinances that some cities have passed to ban bottled water are a deprivation of a basic freedom. Dictating that people cannot drink something that is not materially unhealthy, and that is no more environmentally “damaging” than products which are NOT banned, is tyrannical and treats adults as if they were small children unable to make up their own minds. There is certainly a lot of that totalitarian impulse in the views of many environmental lobbyist groups.
Personally, I think the campaign against bottled water is a Zohnerism, a campaign that was started and promoted in order to demonstrate how people can blow environmental risks out of proportion. It was named for Nathan Zohner, a junior high student in Idaho Falls, Idaho, who made news when he used jokes he got off the internet to conduct a survey asking people to sign a petition seeking the ban of “dihydrogen monoxide” AKA H2O or water! All the things he said about water were true, but his survey omitted the fact that water is an essential basis for life and the ecosystem of the earth. He and millions of other people around the world laughed uproariously at the people who had been so acclimated to fear of “chemicals” while being totally ignorant of real science that they could be taken in by such statements. His point was that much of the paranoia we hear and see every day about various chemicals in our food and water and environment are similarly exaggerated. Zohner’s survey is revived regularly to demonstrate the scientific ignorance of most people worried about the environment. The fact that the campaign against bottled water is focused again on H2O, and is similarly based on exaggeration and lack of context, leads me to believe that there is another Nathan Zohner out there who is laughing himself silly watching the US Conference of Mayors adopt a resolution condemning bottled water as a threat to the environment! The mayors demonstrated that they are all emperors with no clothes, whose fear of appearing environmentally ignorant is only exceeded by their actual environmental ignorance.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
In Sarasota FL, drinking-quality water is reliably provided at the tap for about $6 per 1000 gallons. By comparison, a 16-oz bottle of bottled water costs about $1.50. That is approximately $12,000 / 1000 gallons, or 2000 times greater than the cost of tap water. So, why spend 2000 times more? One reason is convenience. I drink bottled water when I’m not at home.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I live and work in Colorado Springs and I drink bottled water as a convenience at work at those times when I forget to bring my Nalgene container. I know that my tap water is safe, tastes excellent and is probably safer than bottled water since there are fewer regulations dealing with its quality. I rely on bottled water at other times when it is more convenient than filling and carry my Nalgene bottle or it is offered at events such as picnics, sporting events, etc. since I do not usually drink soft drinks. Whenever possible (such as at work) the empty bottle is placed in the recycling bin.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I have to drink bottled water because agriculture polluted the wells here in Brandonville Schuylkill County Pa. SINCE 1997. My business that was in the family for fifty years was forced to close because Epa from region three came here and said to pump out my new septic and it will be ok . Well it was overfertilizing with commercial fertilizers by the only farm family here in which since many babies and people have died. These lies now are making people on sewage treatment to pay to filter out nitrogen and phosphorus while people in rural areas are left for dead. Thanks alot Epa.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I drink either bottled water or purified tap water only. Municipal water has chlorine and fluorine added (neither of which I want or need) and there are too many other possible contaminants. One example is the presence of residual pharmaceuticals and consumer products..who has to go to the pharmacy anymore? Drink enough water and you’ll get all the antibiotics, antidepressants, and Viagra you need.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I drink bottled water when I want to drink water. I use filtered tap water for almost everything else. The bottom line is that water is a healthier beverage - it hydrates without sugar, caffeine, artificial additives, carbonation, etc. I have children at home - that’s important to me. Our nation’s drinking water infrasturcture, although it produces some of the best tap water in the world, is in need of improvement and updating. Let’s do it without wasting time and energy singling out one food and beverage commodity. Have you looked in your pantries, refrigerators, laundry rooms, cabinets? Still think bottled water is public enemy number one for use of plastics? Finally, let’s all recycle!!!
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I have health concerns about fluoridation and chlorination of tap water. I remember the well-water from my grandparents farm and how clear and clean it tasted. It would impossible to get that from a municpal water supply these days unless you installed some type of filtration unit.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I drink filtered tap water which is cheaper than bottled water.
My house was tested and had low lead levels in the water before I brought it. I can’t afford to dig up my yard and replace the pipes. The public water is tested and we receive results annually, but they don’t own the pipes on my property.
I used to monitor well water for public schools that were non-community, non-transient public water systems…each building. We tested that water for 43 contaminents…all on different schedules but the lead and copper were from the building not the water supplier.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I drink water from the tap (filtered) and from the office water cooler. I only buy bottled water when it’s the only choice, as it is environmentally unfriendly to say the lease. I’m not convinced that the plastic bottles are safe either.
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Thank you, Mark!
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July 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
tap through the refridgerator delivery system
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I drink filtered tap water most of the time, but do drink bottled water and boiled water about 25% of the time also. I have no preference to bottled water because I have no faith that they are cleaner / healthier. I think the flame boiled water may be the healthiest. I DO NOT use microwave ovens at all.
I get this vision of someone filling the bottle in a back alley with a garden hose and calling it spring water. Then you have all the reports that the plastic bottle can not be placed in the freezer or left in the car due to the heat / cold breaking down the chemicals from the plastic into the water. I feel like drinking all water is a crap shoot, but a body needs so much of it, what’s a body to do?
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
try not to do bottled H2O but the convenience is hard to beat. It gets hideous when you think of all the pollution and degradation of resources involved. One should not buy bottled water. As, Sarah Andrews said, “if it ain’t grown it’s mined’. Inks, dyes, plastics, wooden pallets, nails, trucks with diesel, forklifts, refrigerants, the list goes on and on when you look at everything that goes into making a silly little bottle of H2O. What a self indulgent waste. Hope we get to think it is silly, like we thought +40 years ago.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Let me add one note: America’s landfills are NOT in danger of being used up. Especially in the West, there are huge land areas that are suitable for landfills. The key to putting waste in landfills is to make it as much like rock and dirt as possible, so that it will not change over time. Items that actually “biodegrade” do bad things: (a) They collapse the landfill, making the surface unstable and unusable for future softball fields and golf courses; (b) They generate methane, which is a greenhouse gas, and can in high enough concentrations be flammable and, confin ed in a structure put on the surface, actually explosive; and (c) They release chemical dies and other components of the material that can leach into drinking water and contaminate kit. The BEST thing to put in landfills is plastics that do NOT biodegrade. The only proper use for biodegradable plastics is when they are going to be added to a compost pile. By far, paper and cardboard take up far more volume in landfills than plastics do.
And by the way, for those who think it is evil to put paper in landfills rather than recycling it. There is NO threat to old growth forests from paper production. Paper is made from fast growing trees like cottonwoods and yellow pines that are harvested after only five or ten years. The sites are then replanted and more trees grown. Worrying about the trees used to make paper is like worrying about the cornstalks that corn grows on.
Because we are told that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are threatening to raise global temperatures, we should be encouraging actions that take CO2 OUT of the atmosphere long term. That is done by TREES, including trees grown to make paper. When we turn a tree into paper, and put the paper in our file cabinets, on our bookshelves, and in our landfills, we are keeping the carbon the paper contains out of the atmosphere, and decreasing greenhouse gas levels. This is called “carbon sequestration”. Recycling paper REDUCES the amount of CO2 we take out of the atmosphere and PROMOTES global warming! Remember, every time you buy a ream of recycled paper instead of new paper, you are ADDING to the total CO2 in the air and contributing to global warming.
Trees are a renewable resource. ALL of the carbon in trees comes out of the CO2 in the air. We should be promoting use of wood and paper in as many applications as possible, and then sending the used paper into landfills where it will stay for a century or more before getting back into the atmosphere.
So when you are at the grocery store, ask for PAPER bags. And campaign against municipal paper recycling programs, which are ignoring the larger carbon cycle that affects global climate.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I drink bottled for convenience and at home drink Brita filtered water. My Keizer Oregon water just tastes odd. Residue is left in cups and in ice trays so why would I want that inside of me?
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I drink Philly tap water. If you leave a pitcher in the fridge and just refil it, the chlorine smell gases off and you have water that tastes just like bottled. I drink filtered water when at work. Bottled water is just a matter of convenience for most. If people understood that bottled water has the same ‘contaminate’ issues as tap, perhaps they would reconsider. Anyone who thinks bottled water is safer than municipal water is kidding themselves.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I drink charcoal-filtered tap water (through the refrigerator) at home - as the charcoal removes most or all of the chlorine taste.
However, I prefer to drink bottled water on the go - as it’s more convenient to grab a water bottle than to fill a mug on the go… then lose the mug! Of course, I recycle the plastic bottles.
Also, when entertaining, bottled water is preferred over sodas and other canned drinks.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
We use tap water most of the time as it is the most convenient and available everywhere! With public water in the U.S. as being the safest in the world and available at a reasonable cost how can you go wrong. We do on occasion buy bottled waters, mostly in the form of seltzers, sodas, etc. and those large gallons that we get each year for hurricane supplies. Most of the small plastic bottles that we get, we reuse several times as “water” bottles, filling them with tap water for use, usually putting them in the freezer to increase the thermal mass for the freezer in case of power outages for storms and hurricanes, as well as use in coolers; but also by filling them up only part way, we can fill them up the rest of the way at the tap, having cold water to take! Eventually, we recycle the plastic bottles!
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I drink more bottled water than I shuold, mostly for convenience. But I’ve just gotten a Sigg, and I’m trying to do more tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I drink bottled or filtered water usually. It is not always convenient to filter (if not at home etc.), so I drink bottled as a substitute. The reason is simple; taste, smell and appearance. As an environmental scientist I understand that the three sensations may be more subliminal than realistically essential for good quality drinking water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
To Raymond Takashi Swenson: Chill, dude!
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I drink tap water that’s been through my Brita filter. Since I live near DC, I’m a little uneasy about the potential of lead in unfiltered tap water. I would drink filtered anyway, because of the improved taste. There is also the issue of endocrine disruptors/hormones in tap water. Though I know my Brita filter probably doesn’t remove those, I can understand if some choose to drink bottled spring water as a potential alternative.
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July 7th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Our office is located in a building where the tap water is horrible. At home I’ll drink tap water but when I’m on the run bottled water is just convenient
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I drink bottled water in most locales since tap water most typically has FLUORIDE (frequently added, not natually occurring) which has many adverse health effects (see peer-reviewed published literature). Most of the home water “purification” systems do not remove fluoride. If I am going to be in a given location for a while, I will check out the chemical testing results for the local water system and also the testing results for the bottled waters which are available for local purchase, and then make my choice based on specific data.
By the way, most of the sources of fluoride sold to the water companies come from industrial waste processes, the exact chemical form/s of which have NOT been biologically tested, and which would otherwise have to be (expensively) disposed of as hazardous waste.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I drink bottled water because the taste is better than tap water in Dade County. When on the go bottled water is more convenient. I have not had a chance to look for the following, but does anyone know what the drinking standards are for bottled water or where this information can be found? Thanks.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I generally drink bottled water when out of the home, because it is easier to consume in the office. In restaurants, etc., I will drink tap water put out on the dining table. Like some folks, I probably bought into the advertising and marketing of bottled water to be safer that tap water. Obviously in most cases this is not the case. We use a pretty good filter at home so tap water is the rule.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I drink tap water foremost because it is more trustworthy. Although both tap water and bottled water are tested using similar standards, tap water is evaluated far more frequently and has more independent observance by the EPA and DEP (state and federal environmental authorities). The quality of bottled water, however, is often evaluated by the bottled water corporations themselves, since the gov’t lacks the capacity to regulate bottled water. In some cases this has resulted in cases of bottled water contamination that have lasted for weeks before the public was warned. Bottled water may taste “cleaner,” but the risk of contamination is greater than with municipal (and more regulated) tap water. The only reason municipal tap water may be unpalatable owes not to the source, but to the pipes which carry the water to one’s house.
It is also more economically sound to drink tap water in lieu of the bottled stuff. We are facing a global water crisis where more than two-thirds of the world’s population will soon lack access to enough clean, drinking water - a human necessity and right. At the same time, corporations like Coke, Nestlé and Suez are turning water from a public resource into a profit-driven commodity and selling it to us at a higher price than gasoline. In fact, Dasani water and Aquafina water are bottled from municipal water supplies.
It is environmentally sound as well: the plastic bottles used to contain bottled water also require massive amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport, and billions of these bottles wind up in landfills every year.
Hence, the obvious environmental, economic and health risks involved in drinking bottled water are more than enough to turn me from it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Here in the great country living of North Carolina, we drink Well water. but since our state is in a drought, our well water is limited for uses. Well Water is the cheapest, the only cost to it is drilling and the pump. I’ve seen your different flavor bottle water and your boiled water jugs. it’s funny, not going to buy them, that there is a waste of money.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I filter tap water and then drink it. It tastes just as good as bottled water. I only drink bottled water when I am out and about and have no choice.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I almost always drink from the tap (my well) and I tell my children the same however they sometimes like the fancy bottles so I’ll buy them one under the condition that they refill it from our tap
So save them bottles and monery and refill them at home
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I think you’re being far too simplistic in your analysis to conclude that bottled water users do it out of convenience. That may be one reason, but there many more. Poor water quality. A healthier beverage choice than sugar-laden products. Colder temperature (bottled is colder than water fountain for instance). Convenience is a legitimate reason. As consumers, we want and often need convenience. Conservation without compromise - a motto more “greens” need to embrace, for the good of the environment.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
It’s easier for me to fill my reusable Nalgene bottle with water from my tap each morning before I go to work than to buy bottled water. The only exception I make is for flavored seltzer water, which I drink as an alternative to water from the tap. Adding a little lemon or lime juice to plain tap water can also make it more appealing to those who just don’t like the taste of their otherwise safe tap water. We’re lucky here near Sebago Lake, Maine- our water is very clean. Tap water is more convenient for me.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I think it is more environmental to drink tap water, particularly if you have a safe and reliable supply, because it cuts down on the use of plastics.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I drink tap water and use a filter. It tastes just as good, is cheaper, and conserves plastic. Also, I drink a ton of water and I hate lugging heavy things up my apartment when I get back from the store, so it conserves my own energy as well.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
When the bottled water hit the market I thought what a waste of money and I drink tap water when it is convenient but I have to admit when traveling or when entertaining it is easier to use bottled water especially when biking. The bottled water does usually taste better but I have had bottled water that was worse than tap. So it comes down to a convenience thing for me.
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July 7th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I drink either depending on situation. At home I drink only tap water. On the road I drink bottled or tap water I have brought along.
Yes I know bottled is more expensive, therefore it is a consumer decision. Let the marketplace decide what it costs. Gee, I wonder what beer or wine or soft drinks cost; what is their carbon footprint (like anyone cares)?
I love my tap water - some of the best in the world. Did you ever think about how much of the tap water produced is consumed? Less than 0.1% How about bottled water? At least 99%
Many of you sound like warmed over refugees from the late 60’s. Conserve where you can - quit taking 20 minute showers, watering your lawn. These two methods will save more of your water footprint than worrying about the kind container someone else drinks their water (or pop or beer, etc).
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Bebo agua de la pluma pues se que se le hacen más análisis de agua que a la embotellada. Además tiene minerales que necesito. Uso una botella plástica que lavo diariamente. Se que tengo que comprar una y quiero sea de SS pues la de plástico libera plástico al agua que me tomo.
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I drink (bottled) spring water from a company whose operations I have researched and whose products I trust. Why? Because I really read those notices of violation that the local water company sends out about their limit exceedances; because the tap water here tastes stale and smells awful; and because “unknown” contaminants in tap water (like drug residues) continue to be discovered. And finally, because it’s appalling how subject to political pressure the agencies responsible for ensuring the safety of drinking water are — Federal, State and local. As long as politics continues to trump science, I will continue to take proactive responsibility for the safety of my food and drink.
And, of course, I recycle the bottles. Why has there not been as big a stink about recycling of soda and other beverage bottles as there has been about water bottles? Or, at least there was, before the drug residue story came out.
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I drink mostly tap water because I know daily analyses are performed to it. Moreover it has minerals that I need and I am reducing solid wastes. I use a plastic bottle that I wash daily and I know I have to substitute it with a SS bottle to prevent the plastic material from dissolving into it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I don’t drink much water. I am a soda-holic, so that’s my bevy of choice but when I do drink water, I get it from the tap. I think it’s insane to buy water and even more insane to produce so many plastic bottles. I believe that tap water is just as good.
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I always drink tap water at home and in the office. The only time I revert to bottled water is when I am away from tap water and hove no other choice. I find it preposterous that we have to pay outrageous prices for water in plastic containers!
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July 7th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Tap water, always, unless no option. If the well-to-do move to bottled water, that undermines part of the public will to favor and pay for good public water supplies, including ready availability of tap drinking water in public places.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I mostly drink reverse osmosis filtered water. And although I consider myself to be an environmentalist in many, many areas of my life, I have utmost sympathy for the bottled water drinkers. The chlorine in most city water tastes horrible and has the health problems already mentioned above.
Even worse, most tap water is treated with fluoride, a practice I’m opposed to, again for the health reasons stated above. I wish the government would just hand out free fluroide pills to anyone who wants them and leave it out of our drinking water. It’s easy to filter our chlorine, or just let it off-gas out, but the few filtration systems that can filter out fluoride are very expensive.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
1. I live in the country on a cistern, i.e., all water comes from rain capture from my roof. Emerging science is that 40-60% of cistern water is contaminated with e-coli. Lots of organic material gets into my cistern, including a lot of dead cicadas this year, even with screens.
2. I am a bit of a “supertaster.” I’ve seen estimates that 30% of women are considered supertasters, while only 10% of men are. I think the fact that some people can discern differences in the taste of water is lost on those who cannot. Having said that, some bottled waters taste bad and some municipal waters taste great. London’s municipal water tastes better than Evian.
3. I think I am allergic to calcium carbonate or have some kind of chemical sensitivity to it. Drinking water utilities inject calcium carbonate in the system to protect the pipes.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I drink tap water filtered through a faucet-mounted charcoal filter. I carbonate it at home too, to eliminate plastic soda bottle waste. (Sodaclub sells the gear). Bottled water can have a plastic taste, which bothers me despite industry assurances that those chemicals are safe.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
The federal (U.S.) standard for TDS is 500 mg/L. The state of NV is allowed to be less stringent than the federal standard because TDS does not have associated health effects and the Nevada standard is 1000 mg/L. The majority of the public water supply in Las Vegas has a TDS of about 660 mg/L.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I don’t drink bottled water when tap is available.
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July 7th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I live in a rural area with a drilled well that doesn’t have anything added to the water. I drink this water at home. At work, I bring water from home or drink bottled water because just the smell of the tap water there with all it’s additives is terrible. Not going to drink it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I filter and drink tap water at home, and do my best to remember to fill and bring along a large stainless-steel water bottle when I’m out and about. However, I’m forgetful and live in a warm climate, so every summer I buy a case of bottled water to keep in the trunk of my car. I typically rinse and refill the bottles 2 or 3 times before putting them out to recycle in the fall.
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
We use well water with a distiller simply because there is so much problems with mercury in well water in NJ.
It vaporizes the water removing all bacteria, minerals and metals, and toxins.
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I drink filtered tap water. Although our tap water is not bad, it still has high levels of chlorine and some sediments so I filter the drinking water. We have a chlorine filter on our showers but I can’t find anything to get the chlorine out of the bath water! We rarely drink out of plastic bottles because I am not comfortable with ANY plastic - whether they are currently deemed “safe” or not. We filter the water and fill up ours & the kids’ stainless steel water bottles. Its not just our family - my brother’s family, my sister’s family and my parents do the same. We live in a different world - some times its pretty inconvenient but we’d rather avoid the problems from environmental toxins than do what’s easy.
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
One more thing - we do drink bottled water that is bottled in glass bottles and only from those that have a proven track record - not conglomerates that are all talk and “accidentally” don’t send out the cleanest water. (sorry, I’m a little cynical!).
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July 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I live in Tampa ,Florida and the tap water is terrible. I buy water,3 gallons at a time with the same container,from various vending machines that use a minimum of seven different treatments.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Tap water is as pure as you can find here in NY, and bottled water has often been found to have contaminants not controlled by regulations. Plastic bottles should be severely restricted or banned.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Bottled water is WAY too expensive… And it was just found that some bottled water companies lied and said their water was from “natural sources” when actually it was just treated tap water… I just re-use my plastic gallon containers and fill them up at the filtered water machines at my co-op for 25 cents a gallon.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
to each their own on this issue and I am and have been drinking only tap water for a long time - i’ll drink bottled when I’m overseas as in Mexico or Africa -
Tap is the way to go for me - when I’m offered bottled water I’m thankful and let the host know that I prefer tap.
thank you !
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Tap water is just as, if not more, clean/healthy/safe as bottled water and we don’t create the huge amounts of WASTE of the empty plastic bottles in our landfills. (The majority of plastic water bottles are unfortunately NOT recycled).
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
The quality of water in my community is very good and the water from my ice maker built into the refrigerator is filtered. Why spend the price of bottled water when the plastic is a problem to be gotten rid of, the water I already pay for is readily available, plus I do not wish to support foreign water company owners.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I never liked the bottled water craze. I think drinkable water should be a basic human right, not a commodity. The plastic from the bottles is harmful to consumers and also to the environment. I have some health issues that can be caused by xeno-estrogens, which are linked to plastic bottles. I know my city checks my tap water every day, while bottled drinking water is not checked nearly as frequently, or as stringently. I have a stainless steel water bottle I carry around with me. I think the main reason I drink tap water, is because of the amazing waste of energy and amount of pollution generated by plastic bottles. I know that my city got a clean bill from the hormonal contaminants, even though in the original story, it was listed as one of those contaminated, which had to be changed. I guess I’m lucky to live in a city that has a good clean source of water and makes it a priority to hold it to high standards. The mayor recently made a speech of what a priority it is for him.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I find it absurd to waste resources on producing billions of plastic bottles, bottling water and shipping it when I have a safe source of drinking water already in my home. I learned to drink from a cup years ago. The bottle is not a necessity. I continue to filter water using filter pitchers and a filter on my refrigerator’s water line because I’ve lived in a few areas where the water is not as high quality, but where I live now, I feel safe even when I drink straight from the tap.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I never had the habit, but in the last couple years I have refused to take plastic bottles of water that were offered. The plastic is a nightmare, with only 14% recycled, and the water is expensive. And it’s no better - in fact, if you consider that some plastics leach bad stuff into the water, it’s worse!
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I don’t buy bottled water for 2 reasons: the quality of the bottles/plastic make it questionable from a health standpoint; but the biggest reason is the unnecessary use of oil to make the plastic, the energy to recyle them, if they are recylced, and the litter if they aren’t recycled. I have a special steel bottle that I fill with tap water which is convenient and just as good.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I drink tap because plastic is RUINING this planet.
I also drink it because I have a great filter that cleans out the jet fuel, chlorine, flouride, and everything else bad in the water FIRST.
I have a Sigg reusable METAL waterbottle that I fill every day and I cause no damage to the environment that way. I use the Crystal Quest tap filter. It was about $30 and it works GREAT.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND GOING THIS WAY!
Please please STOP drinking out of plastic water bottles and start doing your part everyone.
Thank you-
Ron McGill
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I have a filter on my faucet; the water tastes good! I keep a gallon in the fridge cold. Why would I spend good money to buy a bottle of water? Do you realize how much oil it takes to product that plastic? And were do we find the empty bottles? On the ground, roads, scattered and tossed. Bottled water is another form of insanity.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Cold delicious tap water is a memory I have from growing up in NJ. That’s something every child should experience. Drinking bottled water is wasteful. I’m part of Food & Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap movement and am proud to be drinking tap water. I do it as part of a pledge to work to give everyone the experience of safe, affordable tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Try a great filter like the one I mentioned. It’s amazing. Seriously.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Try a water filtration system!
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I drink tap water because it’s always available, is cheaper than bottled water, many times it is safer and sometimes it is the same think. I want to protect our landfills from becoming filled with empty plastic bottles.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I try to never drink bottled water unless they’re 1/2 finished bottles that I don’t want going to waste! But I seriously have not taken and drinken a full bottle of water for almost 2 years and have been pushing my company to do the same at their company functions - which finally happened as we cancelled our Arrowhead bottled water contract and now have Pure filtered water systems hooked up!
Plus the bottle is OIL! And the billions of gallons exported for its production (along with plastic shopping bags!) is a main cause for our energy dependence alongside gasoline usage…
Time to wake up people and think first - every action has a reaction.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I drink tap water because it’s always available, is cheaper than bottled water, many times it is safer and sometimes it is the same thing. I want to protect our landfills from becoming filled with empty plastic bottles.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I drink tap water because I worry about carcinogens in plastic water bottles.
I drink tap water because it tastes fine.
I drink tap water because I’ve already paid for it.
I drink tap water because many bottled waters are merely drawn from a chemically treated civic water system.
I drink tap water because I hope my example encourages others to use reusable containers (bottled water containers contribute hugely to landfills).
I drink tap water to try to discourage the waste of resources involved in the production of bottled water and to try to live more simply myself.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
By carrying a plastic bottle of water you are telling the world that you: 1. like to throw money away to big corporations, 2. do not care about the environmental footprint bottled water leaves on the earth, 3. foolishly believe somehow it is “better” for you.
One day carrying around a plastic bottle of water will be as frowned upon as carrying a cigarette. Think about it. Make a better choice.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I live in NY and NYC Tap water is one of the 10 best waters in the world, so why would I spend money on bottled water? We pay more for bottled water than we pay for gas for our cars in NYC. Bottled water requires a plastic bottle which uses up oil resources, and contributes to the pollution of our environment both in the making of the bottles, and in the bottles themselves. Bottled water also uses up oil resources in the bottling, distribution and transportation, contributing to global warming.
NYC tap water is so clean and pure that filtering it only takes out minerals that the body needs, and is a waste of money as well. A lot of bottled waters are also filtered, such as the water distributed by Coca Cola, so there is no real benefit from it. Clearly tap water is the way to go if you care about the environment, your health, and your pocketbook.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I drink approximately 5 bottles of water a day. I no longer drink the bottled water that is provided at work. I bring in a recycled container from home and fill it up at the water cooler. I will begin asking my company to do away with bottled water and provide each employee with a recycled plastic bottle that can be refilled.
We all need to stop throwing away Nature’s resources.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Water that is stored in plastic absorbs PCBs that have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer. If fact, women who are at risk for breast cancer are routinely advised to NEVER eat or drink out of plastic containers, and to avoid storing food in plastic.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
My tap water tastes fine. Plastic is a petrochemical product, and it’s manufacture uses too much energy for the return. Standards for tap water are safer than bottled - most of the bottled water companies are simply bottling municipal water anyway.
Using plastic water bottles is one of the most wasteful things one can do. I believe these containers should be taxed and the proceeds used to support environmental restoration.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
NO BOTTLED WATER…
1. Bottles are made from petroleum, energy is burned to make the bottles, energy is burned to deliver the water
2. We already have an infrastructure in place to deliver clean water EVERYWHERE in the country
3. The chemicals in the plastic are toxic
4. Recycling the bottles doesn’t solve the problem; a new bottle needs 90% virgin materials
5. Plastic bottles will be with us for 1000 years
6. Bottles water costs 10,000 times more than tap water
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I drink tap water from a reusable aluminum bottle. There is absolutely no reason to buy something that’s readily available for fractions of a penny (that I’m already paying for) and create excess plastic waste in the process. Buying bottled water is a scam and it’s sad that so many people don’t see through it. It’s sad for them and it’s sad for our planet in general.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I consider it a waste of resources to drink water that has been put in a bottle and transported many miles when I have very safe water in my own home and in restaurants. I cannot justify the amount of energy consumed in the production of bottled water. While I do recycle any plastic bottles I use, it makes much more sense to reduce the number of bottles produced whenever possible. If I need to carry water with me, I simply fill a reusable plastic or metal bottle and carry my own.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Why I canned drinking bottled water:
Because I can’t stand seeing all the plastic bottles being thrown away every single day
Because I can’t stand to hear that there are so many plastic bottles in the world that the recyclers are throwing them away into landfills, even after we [occasionally] place the bottles in a recycle bin
Because almost all plastic bottles are derived from petroleum products, something we should try to use less of…
Because the bottles take thousands of years to decompose after 10-12 seconds of use
Because there is way too many sad stories in the news about the methods bottled water companies use to obtain the ‘rights’ (ha) to get access to the water.
Because after the water bottling companies are done with a well they move on to the next well, and so on and so forth, leaving the residents high & dry, pun intended
Because the tap water in Chicago taste great and I trust it, besides it’s a free for all with what goes into bottle water, at least our tap water is regulated and tested and in the 46+ years I have been addicted to it – I have NEVER gotten sick from it
Because I can’t stand seeing all the ¼ used plastic bottles being thrown away, did I mention that already?
Because bottled water cost way too much per ounce and I have better things to do with my hard earned cash
Because many news articles are claiming bottled water its filtered water, I can do that (and do – Brita) at home, again for a fraction of the cost
Because many wells & springs are running dry and their reduction thru added siphoning for bottled water is adding to the problem
Because there is a water scarcity around the world, people die every day due to it – and now many people’s pweshus widdle xeroxed kids drink (and some adults) only a ¼ of the bottle and throw the rest out and the parents say nothing – (give them a glass of tap water, really it won’t hurt them) – and pour the unused portion down the drain or water the garden if they cannot drink it!
Because they market the convenience of it baloney! What’s the convenience of having landfills overflowing due to the zillions of empty (or partially empty-see above) Think long term people!!
Because the bottled water companies frighten us from reusing an empty bottle – God forbid! I have tested this theory and I am still here to say baloney!
Buy a reusable container, fill it from the tap, bring it to wherever you are going, all this for a fraction of the cost, it is really that easy!
Thank you for listening!
Roy, adrift in Chicago…
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I stopped using plastic bottled water because it’s not good for the environment. We all need to find our reason to stop, but the environment is something for all of us. If we don’t want all of those bottles in the dumpsters, then we need to stop using them. The water is not any different than your tap water and it can be put into a reusable bottle! One more thing about bottled water and children, if our children don’t drink tap water, they will NOT get the fluoride that their teeth need! Our government made sure that the water coming from our taps had this very necessary ingredient in it back in the 60’s, now a lot of children will have bad teeth just because of not drinking tap water! The convenience of bottled water is not worth it! The children who need fluoride are 19 and younger, so if you are 18 and think you know what’s best for yourself, and drink water from bottles, then throw them away, you are not helping your future! There are a lot of things we can all do to help, and this is one thing that would be easy!
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Tap water is all I drink. Water should not be a commodity to be bought and sold…it is a basic human right and necessary for survival. I’m completely against privatization of water and the plastic water bottles are horrible for our planet and our health.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
people around you also influence your decision. They feel it is not safe. However, I switched back to tap water now.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Before meeting my now deceased wife Augustine, I always drank tap water; but out of consideration for her rather strong feelings on the subject switched to the bottled product.
Accordingly, I merely went back to my previous habit.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Filtered tap water is the way to go since there is no bottle to throw out and you have decent water to drink or cook with, and if you need some while on-the-go, fill up a spare plastic bottle that you were about to recycle with filtered water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
The tap water in my community is of excellent quality. Most bottled water is filtered tap water. I bought a filter. Presto! Same quality at a much lower cost, including ecological cost.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I have never felt the need to purchase bottled water for normal household consumption, simply because it just feels wasteful. I can see the utility in certain cases such as when on the move, but have completely stopped the habit of drinking bottled water unless extremely necessary. I ask for tap water even when at others’ houses. I cringe when I see families carting crates of bottled water from stores to their cars month after month. People should try and follow the first of the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) as much as they can. There is a reason they are worded in that order.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I drink almost nothing but water all day long, and I drink it from the tap (filtered) at home and when I’m out. I even carry tap water with me when I’m out and about. Aren’t there enough petroleum products in the waste stream? Why pay to ship a product that comes direct to your home for free? In many parts of the world, clean drinking water is scarce. In the United States, we’re lucky enough to have an abundant supply of clean tap water. That’s what we should be drinking.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I drink tap water because I believe in public water and I oppose the privatization of water sources globally. Water is a human right and should not be bottled or commodified. We need strong and safe public water systems. Bottled water creates waste, hurts communities affected by bottled water, is more expensive than tap water and is sometimes even less safe (or simply just local tap water in a bottle). I support organizations like Corporate Accountability International and Food & Water Watch that are working to protect and improve public water systems.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I drink mostly tap water because I have continued access to quality reports, which are unavailable to me with bottled water. I also don’t want to drink plastic residue, many bottles taste like the plastic that they come in. I use a Pur filter to reduce the contaminants in my tap water and it tastes better than all but one brand of bottled water. I also feel that water that has been treated with reverse osmosis is no longer the same hydrating chemical compound and much bottle water is treated this way. I live in an area with little water but what there is is filtered down through the mountains. It is as clean as any bottled water and I don’t have to lug any bottles around.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Bottled water is misconstrued by the general public as being safer than tap. Since I have studied water treatment in college (both drinking, waste, and industrial), I know personally that tap water is more closely regulated than bottling companies. All sorts of contaminants are found in bottled water each year.
I also believe that using diminishing supplies of petroleum products to make millions of bottles for people to consume water that is not even as safe as the tap is completely absurd. I try to do my best to educate friends and family about municipal water supply and the waste that bottled water is. Hopefully people do their research on their local municipal supply before they switch to bottled.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
i live in new york city, w/ some of the best tap water in the world — it’s not much of a sacrifice, frankly, to prefer it to bottled water, especially when you consider the incredible waster, all the way around, entailed by plastic.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I drink filtered tap water… at least 72 oz. a day, because I have heard that is what my body needs to function efficiently, without creating disease. I don’t drink bottled water… I’ve heard the plastic leaches into the water and causes havoc in the body. Also, after watching Garbage Island on YouTube, I am trying not to use any plastic that might eventually end up in the ocean.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I drink tap water. It’s cheaper and, in this area Northern Lake County, IL, with or without a filter, just as good tasting. Too, all those plastic water bottles don’t degrade!
I bought a 24 ounce plastic bottle from the dollar store and just add the tap water. Less waste, tastes good and is much, much less costly.
Now, what does Evian spelled backwards mean?
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
My family currently drinks tap water that has been filtered via an under-sink mounted filtration system. We use Kleen Kanteen stainless steel containers to hold our water. Our town’s water seems to be relatively safe, as far as I have read from their reports, although they do not include testing of drug levels (hormones, heart meds etc.). I really don’t like seeing very young girls reach puberty in 2nd-4th grade, but I have. Is this a result of all of hormone disruptors in the environment? Where are they coming from? BPA? Are these leaching from the plastics? We drink organic milk & no beef & very little meat. It just irks me to spend $2.00 on a gallon of water, although I do this sometimes too. I believe in taking everything in moderation, so I drink some tap, drink some bottled, drink fresh squeezed OJ, a little wine, etc…. Overall, What I hate the most is seeing kids and parents at the soccer field drinking water from those little 8oz water bottles (or larger) and just toss them in the trash can. Why mine the stinky dumps for these little bottles when you can use a stainless steel container filled with water from a larger bottle? There’s no excuse to not have this slight bit of social responsibility.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
We purchased a reverse osmosis water filter for our home and no longer buy bottled water. Its ridiculous to pay for water in a bottle when we can get superior water from the tap and save the environment from plastic. I also purchased refillable stainless steel bottles to take water to go so I don’t have to worry about plastic leaching into the water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I like drinking tap water, if it is filtered. It’s easy, convenient and cheap. We have a whole house water system and it makes our tap water taste better than bottled water. Our water comes to us from the Metropolitan Water District in S. Cal. It’s good quality, safe and ok to drink except for the chlorine and the sediment. Our water system, takes out the bad stuff and leaves in the good stuff, like the healthy minerals.
Anyone that’s been to our house and tasted our water can’t the difference. This filter saves us a ton of money, we don’t buy bottled water anymore. Plus we’re doing something good for the planet, not wasting water and energy resources on bottles. Bottling water and driving bottles around the country in trucks is a big stupid waste.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
99.999% of the time containerized water is absolutely unnecessary. The tap water in America is among the safest in the world and, frankly, the water I keep refrigerated in my big, blue jug is the sweetest water of all.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I try to drink tap water all the time. I only drink tap water at home (and sometimes - rarely - juice). I avoid other drinks as much as possible. I also take tap water with me so that I never need to buy bottled water when I am out. Sometimes this is not convenient and sometimes it makes me late (when I forget and have to run back up the stairs and grab it) but I do it, not only because truly it is such a small inconvenience, but because I feel it is my responsibility to the other citizens of the planet and future generations.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I am very much against the increasing use of bottled water. Bottled water is expensive and is very detrimental to our environment. Bottling companies take water from sources such as our mountain streams and ground water — this takes water away from our rivers which support fish, animals and plants which are important to the health of our envoironment. The manufacturing of plastic bottles uses oil with is in high demand and increasing in price. Only a small percentage of plastic bottles get recycled and most end up in our land fills, in cities, along highways, and in our waterways and ocean. Bottled water results in a high cost to our budgets and our environment. I fill a reusable nalgene bottle with kitchen filtered tap water and I think it is safe and tastes as good or better than most bottled water. Americans need to reduce the use of bottled water and reduce the detriment affects on our lives and our environment.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I have been very worried about the environment for some time. We purchased a water system and just refill old Gatorade bottles. They are very sturdy. I’ve used some of them more than 100 times. Now I am somewhat concerned about the water system, but we thought it was the right thing to do at the time, and I think it is less harmful to the environment than the many plastic bottles.
Also sometimes we drink Gatorade. However, we don’t buy it in the store. We order large packets of the powder on line and make our own beverage which we put in the bottles that we bought at the store before we developed a better method.
We also use the Gatorade bottles for pop. However, the pressure of the carbonation sometimes causes leaks, so that isn’t quite as successful.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
It’s bad enough that we have to pay for water in the first place, but to pay for someone to put it in a bottle (which is not biodegradable)? That’s just ridiculous. When I found out that tap water is regulated by the government and bottled water isn’t, I thought it was kind of silly to think it’s better in any way.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
We’re lucky to live in a country where tap water is as clean as it gets! Not only is tap water affordable, but it comes from local sources. Why waste gas and plastic (which is also made of oil) to transport something that we’ve got right in our homes?
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
We are drowning in a sea of plastic bottles that have been pushed on us by the likes of Nestle and Coca Cola. It’s insane that we’ve been convinced, despite no proof, that this store-bought water is healthier, cleaner, fresher than that from the tap. At least tap water is regulated by EPA and doesn’t add to our already overflowing landfills. Bottled water must pass no test before going on the market. I know Coca Cola cares about the consumers’ health. That’s why their sodas are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup rather than sugar. I’m sure their water is good for you, too. Think about it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I love tap water. Many times I have opened a bottle of water to be disgusted by the taste and disappointed by the lack of spring- freshness it promises. I finally learned that the water in the bottle is not any better, and some times worse, than the inexpensive water coming out of my tap. I know that the water coming out of my tap is subjected to stronger controls than the water in the bottle. And I have the power to find out what those controls are and what, if anything, is wrong with my tap water by asking the Water Authority for records on the contaminants. I don’t have that power with corporations. So I drank tap and have bought a reusable, water bottle that doesn’t leach chemicals to bring tap water with me where ever I go.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Drinking bottled water is drinking someone else’s tap water. The amount of pollution in any water on the planet is just a matter of degree. ALL THE WATER on earth has been proven to be polluted; and that includes water tested in Antarctica. I say let it run out of your taps back into the earth and maybe in a couple of thousand years it may be less polluted.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I drink tap water because it is as good for me as bottled water, maybe better. Also, I dont need to contribute my plastic to the growing ecological stockpile. Richard
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I drink filtered tap water. I save and wash glass bottles from Snapple and Fuse drinks and fill those up and put them in the fridge. My husband loves cold water from the fridge and in a glass reusable bottle I know it’s better for the environment and my pocketbook.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I drink tap water because it is unjust with the poor to buy bottle water. If we all drink tap water the government will be more careful to have the water safe to drink. The more people buy water the less the goverment is going to care for the water and the poor are the ones who will suffer the most. Drinking tap water will make me care to protest if the water’s quality detereorates.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Please tell me more about SS bottles. I’ve never heard of them. I drink tap water also.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I definitely do not drink single serving bottled water (or even soda). I buy the reusable 5-gallon bottled (distilled) water — the kind used in a water cooler.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I drink tap water because bottles water robs local watersheds of their water. It depletes or severly drains springs and creeks near the well where it is taken, which in turn means reduced flow, which can be deadly during droughts. Companies do not slow down bottling because of drought. The other reasons are generic…. Tap water is fine and tasty, bottled water is mostly tap water anyways (not 100% but there is a lot of it in there), plastic sucks (wasteful, made from petroleum, not usually biodegradeable, good source of CO2).
Save a watershed… drink TAP WATER
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I almost always drink tap.
In most cities it’s just as clean (cleaner in most cases) as bottled water.
Selling bottled water is just as big as a scam as it would be to sell bottled air. =)
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I drink quite a lot of water and it’s all tap water in a plastic water bottle which I wash frequently. Producing plastic bottles just to be buried in landfills is insane and I will not contribute to it.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
We have good local water so I drink that but I do refilter it.
I refuse to use plastic bottles because they are unhealthy and contribute to our waste problem. I have heard that it takes 100 years for a plastic bottle to disintegrate!
We have to stop being a nation of wasters and do what’s good for our planet!
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I’d love to meet the person who decided to bottle water. They realized that humans want convenience and novelty. I think bottled water is a waste of resources and money.
Tap water has always been fine for me. I use a filter and it tastes great and is much cheaper.
In regards to the comments above about not caring about beer or soda, it is not as readily accessible. I don’t have the expertise to brew my own beer or make my own soda (I don’t really drink much of these beverages anyway). I just feel that since tap water is so accessible, why buy bottled. It is probably easier to refill a washable water bottle than continue buying bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I drink tap water because bottled water is expensive and my tap water is just fine. I do run my home drinking water thru a filter pitcher but at work I just fill a mug from the drinking fountain. The only time I purchase bottled water is when traveling since I can’t take my own water thru airport security. (Come to think of it, I could take an empty bottle thru security and fill it from a drinking fountain - much less expensive that buying bottled water!) Also, I have concerns about the chemicals in the plastic water bottles leaching into the water and I just don’t want to take any chances with that. And I don’t like the idea of all the plastic that goes into making plastic bottles, only to be thrown away or recycled after one use. It’s just TOTALLY wasteful!
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Bottled water comes from unknown sources and the plastic leeches out of the bottle into the water over time. I have no idea how long it has been on the shelves. I don’t want any more pollutants in my water than absolutely necessary, I am a cancer survivor.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I drink tap water. I use a filter at home and use a polycarbonate reusable bottle on the go. I use tap to ease the landfills with one less plastic waster. Bottled water has lower standards than tap water, anyway.
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July 7th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I drink tap water because bottled water isn’t necessarily any better than tap water (in fact, many brands ARE tap water!)
We need to stop using disposable plastic bottles - they are creating an environmental nightmare!
I have a high quality filter on my faucet at home, and I change the filter regularly, so I know I’m getting good quality water. When I need to take water with me, I much prefer glass to plastic, so I save glass juice bottles of different sizes, wash them out, and reuse them over and over again, to carry water with me when I go out. I don’t have to worry about toxins from the plastic leaching into my drink, the water tastes better in glass, and I can reuse the bottle endlessly. (Besides, a friend who has a degree in chemistry and works for a plastics company told me not to use plastic to store/carry water or drinks, due to the chemicals that can leach into the beverage).
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Some bottled water IS just tap water in a bottle. I use a filter for my house. If you compare the cost, and the efficiency of the filter, the filter is much less expensive and produces an equal or better product. If you need water in a bottle, fill a clean empty bottle and take it with you. The polution created in manufacture and delivery, plus the discarded plastic are contributing to the death of the planet.
If you want fizzy water, you can get a co2 injector, I use one from Soda Club, they even offer flavoring. It works a lot like a seltzer botttle. I am sure there are other brands available.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I drink tap water because I believe it is cleaner and cheaper than bottled water. Another main reason is that it has significantly less of an environmental impact. Without bottled water, we’d be much better off.
I drink most of my water in a plastic bottle, and I’m hoping to move to a metal bottle soon, due to concern about leached plastic.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I drink only tap water.
NO PLASTIC BOTTLES into the waste system!
No further depletion of public aquifers for private profit!
If public sources are contaminated, fix that problem, don’t make a new one with more squandering of resources and more waste.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Every plastic bottle is made from oil. Plastic bottles filled with tap water are hauled to warehouses then to stores in trucks using oil. Does this make sense?
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I just recieved an email asking me to explain why I do not drink bottled water, I simply don’t drink water that has been stripped of its natural beautiful qualities that we, as animals (yep, animals) need, to live. I refuse to pay for a plastic bottle that just contributes to the landfill. We already trash the earth with all the packaging, our consumer waste. Why not help out where we truly can. I can taste the difference of bottled water, I can taste that there are things in bottled water that are not “good” for you, Plastic for one, the main problem. Plus, I live in one of the greatest places on earth and our tap water is awesome. No need to buy bottled water when your tap water comes from a natural spring. Companies like Nestle and Dannon are just ravaging our springs and our earth and packaging their pricy “filtered Mineral water”. Completely cashing in on our gorgeous water supply, filtering all the good stuff out, and pretending like it’s better than the real thing. BS if you ask me. Don’t buy bottled water unless you live somewhere that tap water isn’t safe. That is rare, most places have safe drinking water. Besides, plastics are horrible for the environment and unhealthy for our bodies. We should respect the earth and our bodies and keep them both safe.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I drink tap water only. It tastes fine. A filter on the spout removes impurities. Bottled water is usually only tap water from somewhere else. Water is a public trust and should not be owned by corporations that sell it back to us at high rates and in plastic bottles that clog landfills. Take back the tap is my slogan.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Water is my drink of choice and I can’t imagine paying for it to be packaged in a little plastic bottle made from petroleum and hauled half way around the world when I can turn on the tap, fill my glass or stainless steel bottle and have St. Louis tap water, voted the best tasting city water in the country. Money. Good taste. Safety. Common sense. The earth. Greenhouse gases. You name it. Why in the world would I not drink tap water?
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I used to drink only bottle water until I discovered that most plastic bottles contain a chemical called PBA that can leach into the water. This chemical has been linked with breast cancer and prostate cancer. Since then, I only drink Filtered tab water. Many older constructions have their water pipes made or sealed with lead, which is harmful as well; but a simple carbon filter will take care of that. I strongly recommend filter tab water over plastic bottle of water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I drink lots of water. I do prefer the taste of spring water versus tap. I do however purchase botlled water in 5 gallon containers and dispense in a conventional 8oz plastic bottle which I refill. Less expensive & environmentally correct.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
My water bottle is a globe trotter. It’s spent time on multiple continents, and we’re currently in South America. My water bottle is dear to me, likely because we spend so much time together. I drink tap water primarily because it’s pragmatic to do so: it’s cheap, (almost always) available, and in many places in the world, not just in the US, very safe.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
It is wise to consume tap water as much as possible unless you are in long journey of place where there cannot be tap water supply. As we all know th bottlesa re made of PET that is teh plastic water bottle which is a harmful chemical and we can surely reduce teh consumption of plastic through this.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
It is pointless waste to drink bottled water. Tap water is not much different at all. There’s still the same risk of drinking leftover pharmaceuticals (and other harmful substances) that could not be removed from the water sources that support both tap and bottled water. That being said, the only real point to drinking bottled water is “convenience”, and it’s not really even that convenient. It’s not hard to carry around a reusable bottle and fill it with water whenever it empties. Besides, we could all use what little exercise it takes to get up and fill it with more water
It’s also cheaper in the end to just drink tap.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I drink my local water because it is cold out of the tap and taste great. Drinking my water from reusable metal bottles saves plastic bottles.
I support MY local water supply as opposed to removing water from its local area, where the local water users are generally not paid for its worth.
I refuse to use bottled water since I’ve become aware of the environmental damage it causes.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I drink only tap water at home, especially since it comes right off the continental divide in Colorado.
When traveling and backpacking, I use a Sawyer micro-filtration system (http://www.sawyeronline.com/) so that I don’t have to worry about ingesting any microbes that might upset my system.
When camping, I also use a sub-micron filter (that I bought from the local hardware store) when filling the rv’s fresh water tank.
There are a few places in the US that I would not dare drink the tap water, such as Dalhart, TX. If I don’t have my filter with me, then only in this rare case I would buy bottled water.
Bottled water is so terribly expensive, and the companies that sell it often put a stranglehold on the communities where they obtain it. Additionally, the level of regulation and control over the quality of bottle water is so lax that it’s almost a joke. I feel much safer with my personal filtration systems than I do with bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
It is one of the more outrageous reaches of an economic system based on profit far more than on meeting the needs of humans and our planet itself to charge a dollar for less than a penny’s worth of water. This is especially true when much of that water comes from the tap anyway or depletes communities around the world of water they need. It is also true that in many countries, including ours, drinking tap water is completely safe and healthy.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I typically drink tap water, even at restaurants. The exception comes at work where our water has a very bad taste, and also when I travel or need to take water with me away from home, in the car, hiking, for outdoor activities, etc. In such cases bottled water is very convenient but this represents a small portion of my yearly water consumption.
Cleveland has a very good water supply so we are fortunate.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I will not drink out of plastic water bottles. All plastics leach something. The Bisphenol-A #7 water bottle are the worse of the bunch. The BPA is an endocrine disrupter and mimics estrogen.
I drink filtered tap water or I walk out to a natural artesion well and get my own. The Britta and the Pur filters are pretty good but better filters are available that remove more toxics from the drinking water. I think a whole house filter that filters down to around 5 microns is a good start and then add undersink larger capacity filters that remove organic and inorganic chemicals including chorine, arsenic and lead.
Clean water is very important for proper elimination of toxins from are body, why add more if we have a choice.
There are good websites about water filtration
D.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Plastic bottles are wasteful. Future generations will pay for our “convenience”. I make drinks at home like iced tea or coffee and bring them in stainless steel mugs or canteens. It’s cheaper and better for you. Everything you buy has lots of high fructose corn syrup and dozens of chemicals. Water is the best thing you can drink. It makes up most of our body and filters away toxins. I feel better and more awake and refreshed from plain old tap water. Rhode Island has some of the best in the country. PLastic bottles are made with petroleum products and studies have been done to show that certain chemicals leech into the drink that they contain. A large percentage of what we “recycle” never makes it to be recycled. How many times have you gone out to buy a drink in a plastic bottle and not been somewhere that offered recycle bins so you just tossed it in the garbage at the store? You think well just this once, it’s no big deal but it adds up. The bottled water industry and for that matter all plastic beverage industries are a problem that you the consumer has direct control over. Think about your health and the environment. Just drink water. Go to this article if you don’t beleive me. I think you’ll beleive LIFE magazine. http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_printer.shtml
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I actually bought a bottle water a while ago, but since then I have always refilled it will tap water. I guess when I am really thirsty, I am not going to wait till I see a fountan. However, I will do my part in an attempt decrease the “demand” of bottle water, which studies have shown the production of is harmful to the enviornment. There are a ton of things that we can all do to slow the degredation of Earth. This can be a start for some and a step foward for a longer lasting living place.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
It’s wasteful to drink bottled water when so much of the world is short of water. It’s not green to drink from a disposable plastic bottle. Drinking from plastic can be harmful to you. Plastic uses oil products in its production. Tap water in most places in the US is carefully monitored. Why should we pay for bottled water when we’ve paid for tap water? Need I say more?
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I took the Take Back the Tap Pledge from the Food and Water Watch, and have avoided drinking bottled water for quite a while. It’s robbing local water supplies and selling the water back to consumers for 300 times the price of tap water.
Not only that, but bottled water is often shipped a REALLY long distance to arrive at your local 7-11. Shipping this water comes at an environmental cost. All for what? A plastic (read: petroleum) bottle that gets thrown in a landfill 4 out of 5 times.
What’s worse is that tap water is regulated. Strictly. Bottled water is not, and is often much worse.
That’s why I only drink tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I have been concerned about the amount of plastic that bottled water adds to the waste stream for some time. Although I like to carry water with me to drink when I am in meetings and away from the office, it had become apparent to me that I needed a better solution than bottled water. I researched my local tap water and discovered that it is very safe and well-tested. This alleviated my concerns. I certainly know more about my local water than I do about any bottled water I might buy. I now have a refillable bottle which I clean regularly to carry in my car and to meetings. At home, I have gotten rid of the sophisticated filter I had and have added a whole house filter to eliminate the chlorine taste. If I could not afford the whole-house filter, I would still drink tap water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I avoid bottled water because it’s a win-win situation. I save resources- when I don’t use one of a billion bottles being created just to be thrown away I feel better about my footprint on this small planet; I save money- and with two kids active in sports, it adds up quick. I even bring gallon jugs for games, and we have the team kids use reusable cups or their sports bottles; I do it for our health; tap water has been proven to be safe and more regulated than bottled water. There’s just no reason I can think of TO drink out of individually sized, packaged water bottles.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
The planet is dying from overpopulating, sprawling, self absorbed creatures called humans. As one who is ashamed at all we have done, I try to do what I can to conserve and reverse human effects upon the enviornment. Tap water reduces the plastic at waste fills, etc. and it is safe.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I drink tap water because it is safe and plentiful and cheaper, and is what our forefathers have been drinking for generations without problems.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Using a filter for your tap water ensures that the water you are drinking is clean, while a significant portion of bottled water comes from the tap. Plus, phtalates found in plastics leach out into the water and can be ingested. Pthalates can have an impact on the endocrine system disrupting many human lives. Put on the environmental impact of plastic bottles and it just doesn’t make any sense! So, please let’s get rid of them!
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I drink bottled water because it taste and smells better. The water in Miami, Florida, may be safe, but the taste is awful … very chlorinated and over time it leaves orange stains, occasionally it also smells really bad.
Dictionary: Chlorine, a greenish-yellow, poisonous, gaseous chemical element with a disagreeable odor, used in bleaching, water purification, etc.
Don’t think I’ll be switching anytime soon!
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Will not pay for bottled water when everywhere here is perfectly good tap water (mine is well water.) I’m cheap, I hate to be manipulated for profit was marketing gurus, and I refuse to add to the needless use of plastics going into the garbage stream.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I drink filtered tap water because I know that the city monitors and takes care of it; and I like the improved taste and safety check the filter provides. It also has minerals that I need and I am just as importantly reducing solid wastes and the energy required to create the bottles and dispose/recycle them. I use a BPA-Free hard plastic bottle that I wash daily and find it easy enough to refill at home or the office. These bottles last me over 1 year and then I replace them due to plastic leaching concerns. I have identified no need for “bottled water” as part of my daily routine. It is only for the times when I am away from work or home for 4 + continuous hours that I will experience a need for bottled water.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
The energy used to create the bottle, package it, and transport it to the store is wasteful when people have access to clean drinking water. The garbage created from empty bottles is equally wasteful. To those who recycle the plastic bottles, even recycling requires energy. Drink water from the tap and use reusable water bottles.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Not only can I not drink my tap water, I cannot bathe in it since when the water treatment plant here added ammonia to the chlorine 2 years ago. If I drink it I get a stomach ache. If I shower in it my skin gets beyond dry and I get chest pains. Consequently I have been buying local spring water and have been showering since 8/06 in a neighboring town where they still use chlorine in the water.
The spring water I buy comes from a spring 2 hours away and is delivered once a month in 5-gal. plastic bottles. They take the empties, sterilyze and reuse them, which makes me feel good- at least I’m not contributing to filling up the landfills, but I wonder if I am trading chemical irritation from my tap water for carcinogenic chemicals in the plastic containers in the spring water. And I’d like to be able to shower at home. You can’t win for losing.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
The news about the accumulation of plastic in the ocean and in land fills is enough to prompt me to make the decision.
The community well water is good water. I have started to gather small glass bottles which I fill at the tap and carry with me when I go out.
I’ve had no trouble with breakage but notice ads for aluminum and other unbreakable containers.
The fact that you can’t sterilize plastic bottles adds to the incentive.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I felt like I was wasting an incredible amount of plastic with the amount of water I consumed. Between the waste and money spent on bottled water, it seemed like such an obvious choice to switch to a re-usable bottle, especially since tap water is just as clean as bottled in most places.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
It is so much more cost effective to drink tap water. And it is so much less wasteful to use a water bottle rather than buying bottled water. I think of it like this: I wouldn’t eat all of my meals off of paper plates with plastic silverware, so why would I use a new bottle every time I wanted water? And I don’t really mind the taste of tap water but you can always get a water filter and it’s still much cheaper than buying water in bottles.
Bottled water, for the most part, is a scam. It’s not any cleaner or better for you than tap water in most cases and it costs up to 1000x as much. Why would you give money to such a ludicrous industry? Especially when you already pay for water to come straight to your house.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
I drink tap water almost exclusively because:
1 - it tastes fine (we have a filter)
2 - it is less expensive
3 - most “bottled” water comes in plastic which is a petroleum product and I don’t want to have anything to do with driving up the cost of oil by increase demand for oil related products when that is unnecessary.
4 - I believe water is a basic right and not a commodity to be controlled by corporate interests trying to make a profit. Many corporate giants have bought the water rights in developing countries and then price water out of the reach of struggling peoples. This contributes to lack of sanitation, inability to continue agricultural pursuits which help feed native populations, disease, etc.
I use two refillable water bottles.
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July 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I enjoy drinking water, but the plastic bottles are such a waste of money to buy water in them that is no better than tap water, and then there is a big cost to the environment. We need to look at the cost for making the bottles (plastics and pollution involved), the pollution involved in the transport of the bottles, and the pollution the bottles themselves cause when it comes to recycling them. And then there’s the problem of many bottles not making it into recycling, but rather adding to our landfills! Tap water is just as good as any bottled water sold, and it is better monitored to make sure it stays pure.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I prefer tap water for several reasons. First, I trust our local water company to keep the water safe and clean, if I buy water in a bottle I don’t know who is making sure it is safe. Second, I know my tap water has fluoride, hard to tell with most bottled water. Third, the cost of plastic plus the cost of gas to transport all the bottled water to stores so I can use gas to drive it to my house is way too much to pay for water when it arrives at my home much cheaper. Fourth, the tremendous environmental impact of the plastic and gasoline to make bottled water available is reason enough to drink tap water. Fifth, I believe that if we all depend on a safe supply of drinking water we will make sure that the public water supply remains safe. If people who can afford to drink bottled water do so, and only people who don’t have other options depend on tap water, then we are less likely to collectively make sure that safe tap water is available to everyone. Have you ever been someplace where the tap water is not safe? Tap water that is safe for drinking is important for overall public health, so I hope we all remain invested in our public water supply.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:05 am
We stopped drinking all bottled water because:
1. Why pay more for water than our local source of tap water and make it possible for the bottlers to control our supply.
2. It saves our natural resources and cuts down on recycling.
3. We bought a filtering pitcher (shopped for the best price for it and filters), and if there is any danger of other toxins in the tap supply then the filter takes care of it. So, in the long run we are paying just for filters. One filter is good for two months.
4. Cuts down the manufacture of plastic bottles.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I drink bottled water delivered to me by Kentwood Springs because I thought it was healthier for us. From all the info I’ve been reading on it, it seems that it really isn’t any better than tap water. I would drink more tap water if they would stop putting all the fluoride and chlorine in it. The chemicals are doing more harm than good to everyone so I’ll stick to my bottled water until things change.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:13 am
I drink filtered tap water because it this is the United States and we have clean water. I use a filter because I live in a house that was built in 1944 and the pipes are very old and full of solder and any pharmaceuticals that are in our water are VOCs, which are easily filtered out. Bottled water is an unregulated scam. I remember a short story from about 30 years ago where someone got rich selling “diet” water. It was tongue-in-cheek and very funny then and now it is simply sad.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:16 am
For me it is not about the water. The idea that plastic bottles are created and basically used once and discarded is so wasteful and absurd. Plastic bottles do pollute the water and our rivers and oceans. Plastic very well may be the end of us if the climate doesn’t get us first.
So, I say drink water from the source, the well, the tap, the spring, but never buy a plastic bottle for water. That goes for soda too. Coke and Pepsi are killing all of us and we act like we enjoy the suffering.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:17 am
I will only buy water when unavoidable, as when traveling.
At home I use an NSA filter, but I am not afraid to drink the tap water.
I have never considered the cost to me or to the environment worth buying bottled water. The energy and oil used to make, fill, and ship water is wasteful, increases the price of oil, contributes to global warming as well as air pollution when bottles are incinerated instead of recycled.
How did anyone ever convince us to pay for water when most of us in this country have decent tap water? Was it the novelty of carbonation or the mineral taste of Perrier? Fortunately I don’t like either.
Many bottled waters are just tap water with the possibility of plastics leaching out of the bottle. Not worth it.
Take beck the tap!!!!
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:30 am
I drink tap water that has been filtered. I think it is ridiculous to pay for bottled water when I have it “on tap” at home. I also carry my own reusable water bottle in my car and just refill it when I need to. I don’t want to encourage water companies to produce more plastic water bottles, which take much energy to make and most of the people buying them don’t even bother to recycle them.
I think the bottled water companies, unfortuantely, have done an exceptionaly good job of convincing the general public that they need to drink bottled “mountain spring” water. There is nothing wrong with our water supply, but they imply that it is healthier to buy their product. The public has been royally hoodwinked.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:45 am
We used to drink and cook with bottled water (5-gallon containers) when our home was still on a well — the water was extremely hard and tasted foul even after softening. Now we’re hooked into Lake Michigan water which is excellent, so we drink tap water and use refillable water bottles on the road. In a pinch I will buy bottled water when we’re out, because it’s healthier than a bottle of pop.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I drink tap water because it is far more healthy than bottled water.
Bottled water cannot be trusted. Its source is suspect, it takes fossil fuels to extract and bottle it, and the plastic bottles are laced with pthalates and BPA.
If tap water is suspect, one merely has to install a filter.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:55 am
It is a waste of resources. Most tap water is as good as bottled water. Why waste money and polute the environment with plastic, not to mention the cost of transporting this stuff all around the world. In short, it’s a waste of our money and it polutes the environment.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I drink tap water filtered through charcoal. Bottled water is too expensive, and I don’t believe it’s any safer.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I drink tap water because it tastes good, it’s cheap, and it saves on a ton of waste from plastic bottled water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:14 am
I drink tap water. Sometimes the taste is not great, so I installed a reverse-osmosis system to supply drinking water inside the house.
I am sickened by the thought of all those plastic bottles and other plastic trash in the 10-million-square-mile North Pacific subtropical gyre, north-east of the Hawaiian Islands. The area continues to grow.
All sea creatures are threatened by floating plastic, from the largest to the smallest. We must do something to stop the chain of destruction we humans have caused.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I drink bottled water since having adverse health reactions to the addition of chloramine (a combination of chlorine and ammonia) as a secondary disinfectant in my water district in April, 2007. Those reactions included stinging, swollen, red eyes for hours after showering; severe sinus congestion; swelling of the throat until its nearly closing affecting the ability to breathe. Not only do I drink bottled water now, but also use it for washing produce and cooking. I take short, tepid showers to avoid the ammoniated steam from hot showers. I can no longer take baths. Symptoms disappear when I visit areas where chloramine is not in use where I can freely drink the tap water, shower and bathe as I could before 4/07, enjoy restaurants’ tea, water, food cooked in the tap water, etc.. Symptoms reappear when I am re-exposed to it. While I resent the expense of buying bottled water and I know doing so leads to other environmental issues re the plastic used, I feel I have no choice as our state officials, the water district, and EPA itself are deaf to the complaints from users (at this point nearly 500 people with symptoms like mine, or dermatologic or gastrointestinal problems.. There is no filter or whole-house filter on the market that eliminates chloramine. I would love to be able to use my tap water again but it appears that that will not be possible.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I am very aware of the amount of filtration and the amount of money we spend for the purity standards set for public water. It’s private water we have to watch out for. Special rules apply to the bottled water industry. They spend great sums to lobby for lack controls and misleading language in where or how much filtration goes into their product. Just the cost of the PR to get Americans to believe our tap water isn’t good would build a new water system for many towns. Also the energy wasted to produce and fill all of those plastic bottles is a crime. The biggest crime though is the stealing of water from the water table right from under the citizens that the water belongs to and then selling back to them at 100 times the amount. Criminal! Plus a lot of towns and cities have laws that prohibit the export of water in pipes but the soda pop companies bottle water the export in trucks. Then there are the Great Lakes. The big corporation have their eyes all over the water in the north. Lake Michigan is already lower from the pumping of water from the great under ground sea we know as the water table. I’ve said enough for now.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:38 am
drug residue in the tap water sounds like a story fabricated by Evian. I drink tap water because its good enough. No, it’s not perfect but it is convenient, free and far more ecologically friendly than its bottled counterpart. If I bought bottles of water it would cost almost ten dollars a day to keep me hydrated.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Dear EPA,
I drink tap water because we have great water pressure and I am able to flush the pipes before I fill my glass. It tastes better than bottled water because it has all of it’s minerals; it is also cool, not like my reverse osmosis jug that I keep on the counter.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I drink filtered tap water because I’m very concerned about the waste in landfills. It is such unnecessary garbage. I receive water testing results regularly and my drinking water is very good. I saw the most hilarious comedic act by Lewis Black about our ancestors lugging water and how we have come full circle lugging water around. I do wish that more states would insist on recycling soda and beer bottles like NY.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:22 am
I drink filtered tap water for several reasons, all more or less of equal importance:
I don’t like to encourage the commodification of water and privatization of water sources
the transport of bottled water, especially from overseas, creates more pollution
I find the idea of importing water absurd
I’ve read that tap water is more regulated than bottled water
bottled water containers create more waste
if you’re outside it’s easy to carry around your own water in a canteen or recycled bottle
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:41 am
I actually have well water and a filter, and I live in a clean area, so my water is better than either tap or bottled. If I did live in a city, however, I’d still drink filtered tap. Bottled water is one of the most destructive and wasteful products out there. It does nothing but further deplete our already dwindling water resources and add even more toxic plastic trash to our overly stressed planet.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Dear People! why you drink bottled water when you have cheap tap water. plus if you are unsure about the water quality, why nt buy a RO unit or Activated carbon filter for your homes??? I saw someone telling me RO s wasting lots f water, in that case, there is a problem with the RO unit or membranes needs to be replaced. normally RO unites give around 95% recovery. you may have to invest little capital on that unit, but in the long run, it will be worthy to the max. i agree on most people, saying the energy required for bottled water is far more greater than tap water, plus the impact on the enviroment. so please try to reduce your bottled water consumption.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am
normally RO units designed to have recovery of over 90%, so what you are telling is not right. may be you got wrong information.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:08 am
I rarely drink bottled water as it is wasteful, polluting (plastic), expensive, bad for our environment and our country. In addition, many of the bottled waters (e.g. Aquafina, Dasani) are from “public sources” i.e. the tap!
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Only tap water with a filter for chlorine (no osmosis letting out all the taste and minerals). And a seltzer bottle for my wife’s cocktails. Enough plastic garbage, enough truck pollution.
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:11 am
So many reasons not to drink bottled (unless I have no choice)… why pay for a bottle that’s going to need to be recycled, and took a ton of energy to create, when you’ve got free water right in your own kitchen? I’ve never had any problems with tap water. If it’s not the cleanest, I pop on a Pur filter and have instantly drinkable water. Why waste money on bottles? Why pollute the earth further? Just doing my part….
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July 8th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Bottled when possible, I however am not ever sure it’s better or worse than tap water, and then there is the recycling thing with the bottle.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:00 am
I drink tap water at home (where it tastes fine and is as clean as bottled water: Boston and Cambridge) and also when I’m traveling (where even if it isn’t I won’t drink it long enough to feel the damage). The only time I buy bottled water is just before boarding an airplane for a long flight; I keep those bottles for later refill.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I drink tap water that is filtered. I use my own permanent mug or bottle to transport water in the car and away from home. I also purchase water in glass bottles. I stay away from plastic bottles across the board because they don’t decompose well, leech plastic into the water, fill up land fills and cost more than using my own permanent bottles filled with water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I occasionally buy a case of 1/2 liter bottled water. They are very convenient. After use, I wash them and refill them with tap water. Eventually, the bottles disappear and I buy another case. My water source is one of two wells on the property, both of which have good tasting water. Never had the wells tested for chemicals, but I plan to do that. I live in an agricultural area and therefore, there is a chance of pesticide contamination.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Recently I have been volunteering to run a small school store in the Town of Sherborn. I learned about some of the issues surrounding plastic water bottles as I was researching a reusable water bottle for the school store. We established a contract with a reputable vendor in the US and promoted the use of tap water and reusable water bottles. The project was a huge success and half of the families in town bought water bottles.
I cannot believe the damage that the bottled water companies are inflicting on the earth. They are draining the aquifers of towns where they bottle and using products made from harmful plastics to store the “pristine” water that they deliver. A single use water bottle takes up to 1000 years to degrade in a landfill. We need to get back to reality this is an incredible waste of resources for whose benefit???? Tap water and a filter if necessary. Let’s ban the plastic water bottle.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Bottled water has been proven to be no better than most tap water sources; some distributors actually bottle tap water and then resell it! I use a Brita filter every day for my water to ensure that my drinking water is the purest and safest it can be. Also, if you look at all of the plastic being wasted in the creation of bottled water, it is very disturbing. Plastic is made from petroleum, and if people were more educated about how expensive it is to actually make and ship every bottle of water… we could actually save a lot of resources! Everyone should use a reusable water bottle for their water to ensure we cut down on that unnecessary waste!
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:44 am
I had long been bothered by the number of plastic bottles we were recycling. When I learned much of the bottled water we were drinking was bottled tap water, I switched. I was concerned that it would be hard for my son, but he has also made the switch.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:47 am
It is foolish to pay a dollar for water while it is available from the tap. It is wasteful to put that water in a plastic bottle that will probably not be recycled.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I have a distiller in my house that delivers to my refrigerator. Most tap water is filled with chemicals that I can taste or smell because I am accustomed to the distilled “un-flavor”. I do refill my water bottles when convenient; however, I am guilty of purchasing bottled water when on the run (which is most of the time). Life is so busy and MOST public water fountains are SOOO nasty! Though I admit I am spoiled, I am making a personal commitment to the “RRR” (Recycle, Reduce and Reuse) especially plastic bottles.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I don’t buy bottled water but I don’t drink water straight from the tap either. I filter tap water and carry in my own reusable water bottle. Each year I get a report on water quality from my city. I read through it but it doesn’t give me any confidence in the quality of the water delivered at the tap. The water tastes awful in the summer — too much chlorine I think. I started filtering when I experienced a burning sensation in my throat while drinking water from the tap. The annual report said nothing about testing for things like mercury, arsenic, pharmaceuticals, pesticides (especially those that mimic hormones), etc.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Plastic bottles litter the landscape because not everyone is responsible enough to recycle them. I refuse to add to the madness. I purchased a stainless steel water bottle that can be washed and reused for a thousand years, and I drink only water from the tap.
I think plastic bottles should be against the law.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Bottled water is the biggest hoax ever put over on the public, and boy, did they take the bait! The only thing worse is drinking municipal water because it contains chlorine and sometimes fluoride. Only 3 sources of water make sense……a drilled well , a spring, or a reverse osmosis system.
Bottled water is for suckers, and what it costs to transport it, and manufacture and recycle the bottles is a huge waste!
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am
At home, we drink tap water that has been thru a filter. The bottled water is for convenience, on the road, so to speak. We wash out the bottles and try to recycle them for use.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:18 am
We’ve great water here. I drink tap water when available like at home and work. Bottled water when “out” - working outside, driving, etc. The empties are either refilled with tap water or go in the recycle bin.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Tap water almost exclusively. It tastes fine, and even if it doesn’t, filters work fine. Bottled water is a waste of energy resources, even if you do recycle the plastic. The only time I’ll buy bottled water is at an outdoor event or something, where there’s no other option.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I drink tap water because bottled water is too expensive, the bottles are harmful to the environment and only a VERY small percentage actually get recycled.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I will admit that I do use a little bottled water at work. I’ll buy one bottled water and refill it numerous times from the water fountain or tap, rinsing it out occasionally. After 2 or 3 weeks I’ll recycle that one and get another to use for several weeks. At home we only use water from the tap (we have a well).
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am
We live in NYC and drink tap water. We have purchased a countertop terracotta water filter by Stefani which removes up to 99% of the chlorine and other contaminants. This system is the similar to the ones that Doctors without borders uses in countries where the drinking water is unsafe. First and foremost I feel that no one in the world should have to pay for water, it is the earth’s natural resource. I do not want to give money to yet another giant corporation for something that is a basic human right. These companies are turning our earth’s natural resources into a commodity. Secondly, but no less important, are the plastic bottle themselves, which when disposed of only pollutes the environment. Also added to the pollution is the trucking of bottled water from the plants to the stores. One must consider the entire process of “manufacturing” water, from the plastic bottles, to the cardboard boxes used to case the bottles, to the gasoline used to truck the “finished” product… for me this is way too much waste both environmentally and econmically when we can get it right from the tap for free! By the way those of you who have written about the taste of tap water, the filter i use totally eliminates any chlorine taste from the water. So the bottom line is this: Save the environment and tell the big corporations to take a hike and get a water home water filter.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Our tap water comes from a resevoir where the fish have cancerous tumors. I believe the fishermen who caught them, not the Fish and Game Commission who tested them. Residents who live downhill from it also have rare cancers. There’s a bad dump site above it that the EPA chose to cap instead of clean-up, against the citizens voices. Would you drink it?
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I drink filtered tap water for the reasons already mentioned - high cost of bottled water and its total environmental impact. And carrying a bottle of water just looks silly, like wearing a phone plugged into one’s ear. One could easily be mistaken for a self absorbed poseur.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Here in Puerto Rico EPA is working close to our Water Company. EPA has been strong with water compliance quality with our Water Supplying Company. That is why I use tap water with no problem so far.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I used to drink bottled water, until I learned of the toxic elements found in plastic and how the plastic in these bottles leach into the water I’m drinking. Now I have a Brita water filter and the tap water tastes just the same and it’s cheaper. Plus, you know the water in bottled water is just filter tap water. Not to mention, less bottles means less trash. Reduce, reuse, recycle!
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:41 am
A new industry was created when bottled water in-mass came on the seen, thus, creating jobs. Of course, bottled water isn’t new; there was the 5-gal. jug for the office.
As for plastic bottles, that was also an industry creating jobs. Growing up in theh1950’s plastic bottles were virtually unheard of; almost every liquid was in a glass bottle. Of course, recycling glass containers was limited to reuse of milk bottles, soda water bottles, and beer bottles with each having a deposit for return. Then in the 1960’s industry decided to use throw-away glass bottles soon followed by plastic. This was not decided by the consumer. So I would think that the glass industry took a hit along with workers who reprocessed glass bottles for reuse.
There is always pluses and minuses to everything. If plastic bottles were band, then people would loose jobs.
As far as I remember, drink bottled water became a fad in the 1970’s, particularly with certain brands from France. Then it was discovered that this certain brand was contaiminated itself.
As for myself, I drink mostly tap water and only use bottled water on road trips or hikes. Of course, I make every effort to recyle plastic bottles. The only place I know where one better drink bottled water is when visiting Mexico.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Since my refrigerator has a water purification system, it seems foolish not to take advantage of it by using glasses of water when consuming water at home or bottling the water in bottles that last a lot longer than the disposable ones sold at stores for trips outside the house. Fewer bottles going into the dumps or recycling mean smaller loads for the dumps. Fewere bottles also means less petroleum is needed to make more bottles.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I have given up bottled water because…
–it’s expensive
–it’s horrible for the environment
–it leaches chemicals into the water
–plastic is made with petroleum
I now carry my own permanent bottle of water, and I use tap water! Please make our tap water healthy!!!!
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I drink tap water because I can’t stand all those plastic bottles that accumulate. At work, I do drink spring water from a plastic 3-gallon bottle that’s in a water cooler (but at least those are reused many many times), because the tap water at work tastes awful. I’m not sure what I would do if my employer didn’t provide the spring water. I like to think that I would bring tap water from home, a gallon at a time, but probably that would get old fast. Perhaps I would bring a filtering pitcher to work–maybe that would make the work tap water taste better.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:56 am
The plastic bottles are dangerous to our health,
damaging to our environment, the water in them are nothing more than tap water anyway and water should not be bought like that. Water is supposed to be basically free to humankind! There should be no rights of the corporate world to own water supplies in various parts of the world when there are so many people already lacking water supply and especially any clean water supply. I read where corporations are buying ownership to water all over the world and this is wrong too. I don’t want something like Niagara Falls and other water owned, depriving humankind. We are blessed to have running water most everywhere we go in the United States of America and this is a major blessing already.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:57 am
A commenter above asks:
“Why is bottled water any worse than bottled cola drinks, root beer, and other soft drinks? Worse than bottled beer? Worse than bottled milk?”
Until I have a tap for beer and another for milk (I don’t drink soda) in my kitchen, I’ll continue to buy my beer and milk in bottles. A lot of work and money went into providing an infrastructure in this country so that every residence could have potable water piped directly to the house. Why circumvent that with water that is bottled into petroleum-based containers and shipped 10-10,000 miles (Fiji water in North America? makes me want to scream) using petroleum-based transportation?
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I drink tap water as it comes from our well near Lake Michigan and I believe the EPA should enforce existing laws regarding all streams and waterways in the USA.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I only drink bottled water if I am located at a site that has well water or has been know to have water problems- otherwise I dink tap.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I live in the nation’s capital and I drink bottled water as our tap water tastes like chorine and appears very cloudy when served warm. Also, this city has gone through a lead contamination scare due to old pipes and while I don’t believe my building was along the affected water ways, I don’t want to take any chances. When I visit my folks in FL, I drink from their tap - but only because they have installed a home filtration system for their water.
While I recycle all my water bottles at the end of the day, I will continue to drink bottled water as it simply tastes better - that is to say it has no taste.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I avoid drinking bottled water because I’m very conscious of the environmental costs of bottled water. There are environmental costs in the making of plastic bottles, the bottling process, the shipping, the disposal, and the recycling of the bottles.
I live in an urban area and trust my water quality, though I do drink tap water that has gone through a carbon filter, and it tastes better. I believe that it might also be better for my health. It has become a habit to have my own bottles around to fill when I go to the gym or go out and about. I try to use stainless steel bottles, though they are more expensive.
By using my own bottles and tap water, I’m not imposing on anyone else to do any work, and I’m not generating waste that has to be processed with its resulting environmental costs. That is very important to me.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I am fortunate to live where the water is clean and abundant. Our well is a treasure. We don’t buy water, that’s an alien concept.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I prefer to drink tap water because it is much cheaper and the quality is just as good or better than bottled water. But sometimes bottled is the only water available when I need it, so I buy bottled water for convenience and portability, and I refill the bottle with tap water when I have access to a tap. I triple rinse the empty bottle everyday before reusing it (to minimize bacterial growth), and I replace it when it gets too shabby looking.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I drink tap water because it is inexpensive, convenient, and better for the environment than bottled water. Though I recycle all the plastic that I use, I believe that avoiding bottled water is one of the easiest ways to keep from wasting valuable resources. Plastic bottles are made from petroleum, an ever-decreasing commodity in our modern world. Why waste it on something as needless as a bottle of water? In our household, we use a filtering pitcher and reusable bottles to take our water with us wherever we need to go. We save money by not purchasing bottled water, and keep extra packaging out of the landfill. Avoiding bottled water is one easy way to help out the planet!
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Cathy B.,
If this is such a stupid question why are you spending time answering it? Instead of complaining about things in which you seem to lack expertise, I suggest educating yourself and doing some research on the progress, in regards to environmental protection, the EPA has made in the last 30 years. If it weren’t for the government the environment would be in a far worse state than it is now. We are very fortunate to have access to clean, drinkable, reliable, and safe water… however it may not always taste or ‘look’ good… in most cases it is still safe to consume. Good luck.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am
As the Executive Director of two non-profit organizations dedicated to the education of water industry professionals, how can I NOT drink tap water?! Our members are the ones who produce safe, clean tap water and treat wastewater so it can be safely returned to the environment…and provide tap water in the future…and to NOT drink the high quality, inexpensive water they produce would be to say I don’t trust them; and that our organizations are not fulfilling their mission.
Tap water is highly regulated and monitored for purity, unlike bottled water, and is MUCH less expensive, with less of a “carbon footprint.” Tap water gets my vote every time!
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I drink tap water because it is virtually free and clean, and has the added benefit of not coming from a bottle that takes energy and chemicals to make, and hence does not cause carbon emissions or the release of other chemicals into the environment. It just makes sense, environmentally and economically. With global warming and the increasing demand for petroleum products, we need to be careful with our use of petroleum, i.e. not waste it on bottles that are completely unnecessary.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I drink tap water.
I would hope our government and infrastructure would care enough about its assets (people, ecosystems, and food), to keep the drinking water safe….otherwise it’s effects push deep into the system, like the rising price of oil.
They taught me about the 3-R’s when I was too caught up with running around, laughing, sweating, and being a kid. But somehow they stuck with me. We all know them, and I’m trying to maximize the first two (Reduce, Reuse), before I have to get to the third (Recycle). This is because I don’t know what to make of the recycling debate. Does it create more pollution to recycle, opposed to throwing out? Perhaps the whole idea is there to make us feel good about an action.
So I make a game out of refilling my glass jug at various taps. One of my goals is to see how long I can go without breaking it…and if breaks, I have to take full responsibility to tidy the mess. So far, no breaks. It encourages being careful. It is a conversation piece, a roundabout method to exercise my arms, and I never have to worry about what all that plastic is doing to my body.
Lastly…why do so many people fear tap water, yet they don’t question the water ’solutions’ being used to grow food? Like Michael Pollan said, “You are what you eat eats too.”
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I can live with a little bit of inconvenience to help our environment. The amount of resources spent on manufacturing bottles, delivering, recycling (most aren’t though), etc bottled water is insane - especially since the same thing comes right out of the tap in your house. The worst story I’ve heard is where someone actually used bottled water in their coffee! I recently realized “what happened to reusable water bottles”? I used to drink tap at home and bottled on the go, but now I have reusable water bottles for on the go that I fill at home. Tap water is just as safe, a ton cheaper, and a lot of times tastes better than bottled. Why spend a fortune on bottled - even if your tap water tastes bad you can put a filter on it. I’ve got relatives that I’ve never seen drink water in 10 years until my mother-in-law started putting bottled water in her frig - now all of a sudden they drink water at Thanksgiving or Christmas - never from the tap that’s 5 feet away though. Most bottled water comes from the same place as tap, but they get it in their brain that it’s safer. Believe in your local municipalities and start drinking the wonderful water they make.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Actually, at home I distil my tap water to remove fluoride. That process also greatly improves the taste of my tap water. I’ve been distilling my water since my son was born 18 years ago, and he’s had just one cavity in 18 years - that’s about 1.8 fewer cavities than the average number kids drinking fluoridated water get according to the best study ever done on the effectiveness of fluoridation (Brunelle and Carlos [1990]).
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:43 am
At work, I drink bottle water which I buy the Gallon water (that is either treated with reverse osmosis or steam distillation). Then I just re-fill a glass bottle that I will drink out of. This saves money, has less environmental damage by cutting out the consumption of plastics, and better health effects with less exposure to plasticides in plastic bottles (which can affect your endocrine system). At home, I use both water in the Gallon container and tap water which I use a filter pitcher (like Brita) to reduce chemicals and improve taste.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I drink tap water because our environment needs protection from plastic waste and excesses of consumerism. I drink tap water because I live in a country where water is supplied, treated, monotored and readily accesible. I use a water filter to make my tap water more potable. I use recyclable bottles to carry water from home. I cant afford a greener car or not to use one at all - I can certainly reduce dependency on unneccessary plastic and expensive water, so I do. I see it as an easy way to help global environmental problems.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I used to like drinking bottled water but then I learned that tap water is as good OR better than bottled water. PLUS, using plastic bottles in crazy - it pollutes our environment and adds to our impact on the environment which is damaging to the environment.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I drink only tap water because I know it is thoroughly tested by the local water utility in compliance with state regulations. Since I have had cancer, the quality of my drinking water has become more important to me. Bottled water is not tested for anything as of yet. Anyone can sell bottled water and who knows what is in it. I have seen tests of bottled water and if everyone knew what was in some of it, I am sure they would not want to drink it. Some bottled water is just plain tap water that has set in the plastic bottles for years. Does that sound tasty to you??
I will continue to drink only tap water thank you!!
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Being in marketing myself, I realize that the bottled water craze is all about branding and making money. It is not necessarily any different or any healthier, yet we are trained to think so. To help the environment-I am intentionally going back to tap water & encouraging others to do so!
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Tap water is cheaper. We bought a water pitcher filter which is easy to fill and keep in the refrigerator. I also hate having to recycle the plastic bottles. My recycle bin fills up really quickly as it is and isn’t big enough for everything that I need to recycle. Using plastic water bottles is simply just a waste.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I drink tap water.
We are privileged to have some of the cleanest water in the world. Yet, people insist on drinking bottled water, believing that is is somehow better. I refuse to do so because my tap water (which I filter at home) is perfectly fine: I save money, don’t contribute to pollution, cut down on energy consumption, and don’t buy into corporate propaganda. Bottled water is not only ridiculous, but it is a drain on our limited resources. The production of bottled water–something we can get anywhere–uses more petroleum than we can afford with rising energy costs and increased concern for global warming.
I carry a reusable bottle with me almost everywhere, and make use of the generous number of drinking fountains available. I feel that bottled water is a waste of energy, money, and resources and don’t buy it.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Tap water when I’m at home. Why pay for something that’s free? Bottled water for convenience when I’m traveling.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I drink bottled water. I contracted Giardia through the public water system this year and I can’t bring myself to drink it anymore. I am scared of the public system. Even ice concerns me.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I reach for bottled water so I won’t reach for soda pop. Bottled water is completely satisfying.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:13 am
The main reason I drink bottled water is because of the convenience of moving with it. In addition the chlorine taste is not there.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:13 am
First of all I live in Canada, where like in America we have perfectly drinkable tap water. It is tested countless times a day, unlike the bottled water, which are not subject to any regulations.
Why I drink tap water? Many reasons:
1. Bottled water creates a whole lot of garbage, even if you recycle your bottles. Instead I invested in a Sigg bottle and fill it with tap water.
2. Bottled water does not necessarily taste better. Actually if I filter my tap water, it tastes the best. Besides I no longer have to taste the plastic.
3. Why pay so much for something that is free?
4. I used to buy occasional bottled water when I was out. Yet after years of seeing people filling their shopping carts with countless numbers of bottled water of 500 ml, I am so disgusted with this waste that I no longer buy bottled water. I have to be dying of thirst and without any water in sight to buy one.
5. Drinkable water is precious. Treat it wisely and respect it. We are lucky to have drinkable water coming out of taps. By drinking it, I remind myself of this fact and hence am more careful not to waste a drop of it. I do not take that water for granted, neither should you.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I can’t see paying for water when we can get it from the tap. That’s also using plastic that is thrown out and lasts for a long time. Mostly, though, it’s the privatization of water when so many in the world go thirsty. It is my small way of trying to keep straight my priorities.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I drink exclusively tap water, at restaurants and at home. At work, we have a filtered tap water system. I do not purchase bottled water, ever. If I am at a meeting or event and there is bottled water and bottled drinks, I will take the bottled water only if I am extremely thirsty, e.g., it is very hot outside and I will not be able to have access to water for a while. If I can anticipate this kind of situation I bring along a container of water. If I am hiking or traveling, I bring water.
My reasons are several: first is the plastic waste that poses an environmental problem; second is the amount of energy WASTED in making the bottles; and third is the cost. I do not believe we should have to pay for water, and there should be water fountains available in public places. In fact, I recall when I was a child (I’m 52) there were water fountains EVERYWHERE. What happened? It became possible to make money selling water, and the fountains disappeared.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Try a filter, such as PUR, on your faucet. It greatly improves the taste, and removes chemical and bio contaminants.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:29 am
My whole family drinks water right out of the tap. If we are away from the house, we put water from the tap in reusable containers. We never buy bottles water, what a complete and total waste of money. And all that plastic is hurting our earth.
Wake up people and use your resources wisely. This is the only earth we are going to get!
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I drink tap water exclusively at home and at work. If it’s chilled or poured over ice, any residual tap ‘flavor’ isn’t obvious. When I learned how many years it takes for plastic bottles to break down, I swore them off. If I’m given bottled water at a meeting, I take it with me and refill it to use later. (P.S. If your local tap water isn’t good, I recommend getting a filter system. So much better for the environment.)
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:38 am
There is no point to buying plastic water bottles. In fact even the hard plastic water bottles aren’t good. We should use metal and glass water bottles. Plastic leaches into the drink which it is containing.
Buying pre-filled plastic water bottles is a total waste of money. Always plan ahead of time by bringing a 1-2 (metal/glass) water bottles wherever you go. Buying the pre-filled water bottles is way more expensive than buying a water bottle and using it for many years. Remember when you buy a pre-filled water bottle, you are paying for the bottle, not the water. The water can be as cheap as 1cent/galleon.
Also, the water that comes from water bottles goes throught a fraction of the amount that tap water goes through. Water bottle water goes through 2-5 tests, while tap water goes through 200 tests.
Sometimes, tap water can even be tap water from another city.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I don’t drink bottled water unless there is no other water around and it’ll be awhile before I can get some elsewhere. I have filtered water at home and carry water to work. My reasons are probably “same song, second verse” of everybody elses’ - 1) plastic - we’ve got way too much of it in the environment, not nearly enough of it is recycled, and it takes way too much energy to make it, and 2) safety - bottled water is not monitored and tested anything like as strongly as tap water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I live in Wash, DC and drink tap water. It tastes fine, is cheap, and reduces my impact on the environment. Plus I don’t like the idea of plastic leaching into my water. If I’m on the go, I’ll take a stainless steel thermos full of tap water with me.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Always tap at home. I fill travel bottles with home tap water for driving. Work has bottled water, but I generally bring a bottle with me.
Purchasing bottled water? Only when I fly and it breaks my heart to pay $2 for 12 oz.
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I just put a filter on . . .the water tastes fine and I don’t want the environment to suffer just because I am prissy and need “special” water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I do not buy bottles of water. I think it is both wasteful and extremely expensive. I am horrified that there is a bottled water industry. I refuse to add to the waste stream. I use filtered water at home and bring bottles of water with me. I have many cups with tops that I use for re-filling at all kinds of places. Furthermore, there is no regulation of bottled water. Many brands are simply tap water that has been bottled and re-sold. It’s easier and safer not to even try researching the source of water, etc.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Let’s see…tap water tastes fine (as long as it’s filtered). Bottled water is a waste of water, energy, money, fuel and harmful to the environment.
It can cost up to 10,000 times more money per gallon of bottled water compared to tap water. Some bottled water even travels 10,000 miles (waste of fuel).
The Pacific Institute estimates that it takes 3 liters of water to create a one liter water bottle. When there is a prediction that 2.7 billion people will face water scarcity by 2025, why are we wasting water?
The Pacific Institute also argues that with all of the fuel used for making and transporting bottled water, it’s like filling up every water bottle one-quarter full of oil. What a waste of fossil fuels - especially with such high gas prices!
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Now that I know exactly what’s in my tap water, I buy filtered water from that stand outside the grocery store for 30 cents a gallon. Everything is filtered out of that stuff. Then I bring it home and add liquid minerals to it because they are also filtered out of that water. Everyone who is drinking their tap water, do you have any idea what is in it? Fluoride, chloramines, prescription drugs, and on and on. Bad enough I have to take showers in it let alone put it inside my body. Sure, the tap water could be worse than it is, but if you ask me, it’s bad enough that I won’t drink it or let my kids drink it either.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:15 am
We do not drink bottled water. We have a filter on our tap. We have portable water bottles for ‘on the go’ times. I stopped drinking bottled water 6 years ago to do my part for the environment and my pocketbook.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Even though our water here is nasty, I filter it and it helps a little. Tap water should be good enough to drink without any help. These little Texas towns are always putting our “boil water notices”, after the fact. I know they can’t afford a lot of equipment and that is where the federal government needs to help.
Even so, it’s crazy to pay more for water than gas, and all the plastic bottles, made from oil going into landfills is a major problem. They should go back to glass for one thing.
The bottom line is water should and can be made pure One idea, if power plants used hydrogen for fuel the water “exhaust” would be pure water. something to think about. Oh, and there are ways to produce hydrogen with chemicals that don’t use a lot of power to do it as well as using the sun. It CAN be done.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:30 am
To avoid filling my body with fluoride and other heavy metal toxins added to municipal water, I feel forced to purchase bottled water at the inflated prices. I have not found a filter effective at removing all toxins from the city water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I am curious as to why we even have drinkable tap water. I believe it is something like less than 5% of tap water is actually used for drinking, so why use all that energy to make it drinkable?
Isn’t it true that most the rest of the world does not have drinkable tap water delivered to their door. As my dog is drinking out of the toilet I ask myself, Isn’t it a lot to ask of our municipalities to ask them to give use drinkable water to flush our toilets and water our plants? Two thirds of household water is used on the landscape in the southwest.
I understand the basic human right to clean water, and the very real need to reduce plastic consumption, and the need to not drink water contaminated by plastics. But I wonder if we should be questioning the system all together. Why are there less stringent standards on bottled water? How did Europeans get used to drinking glass bottles of mineral water instead of from the tap? Was it a different stimulant than our plastic water bottle craze? Why aren’t we instead debating how the contaminants got in our water in the first place instead of whether they were removed sufficiently from our drinking water sources?
I live in the desert where people are afraid to use reclaimed effluent for our tap water source because people don’t want to drink it (understandably). So instead, we flush drinkable water, which also seems strange. I am going to propose here one solution for brainstorming a new system - rainwater. Build your own new infrastructure, safe from ground contaminants.
That being said, I am actually glad there is this newer craze to stop taking for granted the amount of plastics we waste. I drink filtered tap water and use a reusable stainless steel bottle or glass. I do not use a water softener because it wastes major amounts of water resource.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Drinking water from the tap is much safer and required to meet much more stringent regulations than bottled water that can come from essentially any unknown source, and costs several orders of magnitude more. It is somewhat silly what we spend as consumers for bottled water. It is a misperception that AWWA and other organizations are working to change.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am
We have a filter on our tap water. We used to buy water in gallon containers at the grocery store but that was very inconvenient. I bought a filter when I learned more about the leaching of the plastic containers into whatever liquid they held. In all cases I avoid consuming plastic nowadays
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I drink bottled water for the taste difference, tap water has a chlorine/chemical taste to it.
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July 8th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I stopped drinking bottled water for a number of reasons. I want to eliminate using plastic containers for food. Plastic food containers are a health hazard, not to mention the health hazard to our environment. We need to come as close to elimination of disposable plastic as possible to lessen the impact on our environment and lower our dependence on oil based products. I also choose to filter the tap water I drink and drink from glass containers or stainless steel when on the go.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Bottled water is bad for the environment and the quality of the water isn’t what people think it is…tap water is the way to go if you care anything about global warming. It’s really the very least we can do to help the environment.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Water is not a commodity. It belongs to the poor and the rich and should not be sold for the profit of any company. And tap water is perfectly safe……safer than some bottled waters.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I find it ironic that people always talk about all “toxins” in municipal water when bottled water often comes from the same sources. It’s just filtered before bottling. If a person is truly concerned, they should just filter their own tap water. Personally, I drink tap water as-is. Because of my work, I see environmental and safety analytical data for municipal water all the time. And I have not seen any indication that tap water is unsafe to drink (with only rare and limited exception). I’d certainly be more worried about the health affects of saturated fat or skin damage from sunburn before I worried about the toxicity of tap water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
The problem with water in PR is that it does meet EPA standards as fecal bacteria is @ 5 not less than 1 as standards require. This trend is very bad as contamination & construction increases, contamination has been going up with every water quality report since 2004 when I began to take notice. With typical increases in water bottle cost every year, new methods of clean water such as Water generating machines have now become less costly alternatives to bottled water without the waste of plastic, need for deliveries or even having to leave the home. Plus they provide water during drought, hurricanes or even when municipal water infrastructure fails (bursting water mains, plant failures etc).
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Bottling companies are destroying the trout streams in Michigan by sucking out the ground water. These tributaries to the Great Lakes replenish the Great Lakes water. This practice is not sustainable since it destroys fisheries and ultimately, by shipping Great Lakes water out of the watershed, bottle by bottle, may destroy the Great Lakes if the practice spreads and continues.
The plastic water bottles create waste that does not break down. These plastic bottles are not recycled except in certain states. Plastic water bottles should not be reused since they become toxic when used over and over.
I try to avoid plastic where possible since it does not break down and ends up in our waterways, oceans and landfills. Remember the line from the film The Graduate: “The future is plastics.” True. Let’s say forever and ever.
Instead of buying bottled water, we should be spending money on upgrading our wastewater treatment plants. Water from the tap is sometimes cleaner than bottled water.
I am the author of The Dynamic Great Lakes
http://www.geocities.com/barbaraspring
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Although I do not use bottled water on a daily basis (I probably use them 1-2 times a month due to its overlooked harm to our environment) I believe that most Americans prefer bottled water because of its convenience.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
troy,n y renns.co.-tomhannic resovior has one of the best drinking warter supplies in the state.i find it to be very tasteful,right amount of cloirineand no bacteria it overall has the right florianated taste……….
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I drink tap water because it is required to go through stricter regulations than bottled water, the bottles are an environmental nightmare, and because if rich people don’t demand clean public drinking water, then it won’t happen. If the whole system were to be privatized, I feel it would be very very bad for people who can’t afford bottled water, for the environment, and only good for the corporations who control the water. The same thing that is happening with gas could happen with water. Water is necessary to sustain life, and there should never come a time when people have to pay high prices for it.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Tap water for me because i think bottled water is nasty tasting and tap water in my opinion is much safer and more eco friendly
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I drink filtered tap water. I oppose the unnecessary waste that is generated from the containers as well as the resources used to manufacture the product. I live in Tampa, Florida and have had no issues.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
From reading some of these comments, people obviously are not informed as to the benefits of NOT using plastic bottles. I drink filtered water which I buy at a water store in gallon bottles. I have a stainless steel container which I use to fill with the filtered water and bring with me when I am out and about.
Since a large percentage of bottled water is actually tap water, it is not any better quality and the expense is ridiculous. Water should not be privatized as it is a something that everyone needs.
Also, the plastic sea that is floating in the Pacific not only leaks dangerous chemicals into the oceans, but the marine life gets tangled up in it and may try to eat the smaller particles, thus killing them.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Tap water!!! Our public system to my home is well water, but at work we have potable water taken from surface water, (Mississippi River). I’ve worked for a water treatment plant before. I know the regulations are more strick on tap water than on bottled water, and continually increasing (required sample analysis, etc.) If the public was made more aware of how their water quality is maintained and preserved to their tap and given the reasons “why” about treatment, (i.e. residual chlorine), I think they would also prefer tap over bottled. I see some complain of chlorine taste, but I’ve found there should not be a strong chorine taste if the residual chorine is within the correct limits.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I drink mostly tap water. I once lived in Maine and we had wonderful drinking water from Sebago Lake. Now I live near Washington and use a pitcher-style filter to clean out the chemical taste and smell. It’s nasty here. I also keep some bottled water in the basement in case of emergency but rotate through it every few months. I’d like to see manufacturers sell very-long-term storage water bottles, like, so the plastic chemicals don’t leak out over lots of time.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I drink tap water because it goes through stricter regulations, and it is FREE. Also, I carry around a reusable drinking container, so that I don’t have to waste millions of plastic bottles. Also, I am from Northern California and Nestle is trying to buy up the rights to all the natural springs. Water should be a free commodity for ALL.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I watched the 20-minute Story of Stuff video at http://www.storyofstuff.com. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns- it exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. After watching that, and learning about the frightening statistics about the manufacturing process and then waste associated with bottled water, I decided to do a bit more research on bottled water versus filtered tap water. I immediately decided to strictly use my sustainable water bottles in order to not contribute to the water bottle waste. I have not found it difficult to convert and encourage others to do the same.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I refuse to drink bottled water due to the fact that there are many contaminants in the water. The plastic container is sodden with chemicals that could potentially harm the environment and individual utilizing it. The container itself is a medley of conflicts. Oil extracted from the Middle East is shipped here to be refined in a petrochemical plant. When it is refined it has traveled many hundreds of miles to be here. When that bottle reaches the individual customer it is positioned in a freezer to refridgerate it. Inside that fridge it is chemically broken down by the frigid temperature. Once it is bought by the customer it is open to the elements, particularly light. Light leads to the photo erosion of the bottle. By the time the water is consumed by the individual it is laced with enormous amounts of chemicals from that one bottle it travelled in. Does it really make logical sense to have poisoned water when it is already available.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
My restaurant (Millennium, sf.)recently stopped usuing bottled water
for all of the reasons folks have listed above. It’s been naughing at me for a while, the absurdity of buying some water shipped half way around the globe, because its in a cute bottle. We installed a great filtration and carbonation system for drinking water (have always had filters on all water, cooking and drinking)besides our tap water is pretty good to begin with.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I agree with Jan. Here in Maryland the water tastes like calcium and chlorine. I use a Brita filter and buy bottles once in a while which I refill with the filtered water and keep the fridge full of them. The filtered water tastes positivley cleaner. It is important for me to feel good about the water I drink because I dring 6-8 20 oz. bottles a day, more when I work-out.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
IN 1974 I BOUGHT A HOUSE BUILT IN 1924. WE HAD A BRAND NEW BABY. A FRIEND SUGGESTED I TEST MY WATER AND REFERRED ME TO THE RODALE PRESS FOR A $35 TEST. THE RESULTS SHOWED EXCESS COBALT, MERCURY, SELENIUM AND LEAD. THE CITY SAID THE WATER WAS FINE BUT THE DELIVERY SYSTEM WAS SUSPECT AND SUGGESTED I BUY A DISTILLER OR BOTTLED WATER. THE DISTILLERS I CHECKED OUT WERE NOT UL LISTED AND TOOK ABOUT $.50 PER GALLON TO PRODUCE. THE BOTTLED WATER WAS AVAILABLE IN ONE GALLON JUGS IN THE DETERGENT SECTION OF THE GROCERY STORE AND SMELLED LIKE A FLORAL BOUQUET. THE ONLY SUPPLIER OF FIVE GALLON BOTTLES SOLD DISTILLED WATER IN GLASS JUGS. A FRIEND NEW THE OWNER AND I VISITED AND WAS TOTALLY UNIMPRESSED BY HIS PLANT. THIS LEAD ME TO INVESTIGATE BOTTLED WATER AND I BOUGHT SPRING PROPERTY IN 1977 — NEVER WITH THE INTENT OF TAKING WATER FROM THE SPRING BUT TO DRILL A WELL INTO THE AQUIFER SO I COULD EXTRACT CLEAN PROTECTED PRODUCT. I THEN STARTED SELLING BOTTLED WATER IN 1979 AFTER FIRST JOINING THE ABWA AND VISITING OTHER FACILITIES. I NOW OWN THE OLDEST BOTTLED WATER COMPANY IN NORTH CAROLINA: I SELL BULK WATER TO OTHER COMPANIES AT A PENNY A GALLON; I BOTTLE FOR COMPANIES IN FIVE STATES AND DISTRIBUTE OUR FINISHED PRODUCT IN TWO STATES. OUR PRODUCT IS NSF CERTIFIED AND MEETS ALL THE STANDARDS OF THE SDWA INCLUDING pH. WE ONLY USE POLYCARBONATE BOTTLES WHICH WE DISCARD AS THE REACH SEVEN YEARS OF AGE — EVEN IF THEY LOOK BRAND NEW. ALL OF OUR BOTTLES HAVE HANDLES FOR CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE. I NOW LIVE IN A PRD WITH 33 HOMES. WE TESTED OUR WATER FOUR TIMES LAST YEAR AND EXCEEDED EPA STANDARDS FOR TRIHALOMETHANES — HOWEVER THE WAY THE EPA COMPUTES COMMUNITY STANDARDS IS BY AVERAGING — THUS ON THE AVERAGE I HAVE SAFE CITY WATER. PERSONALLY, I THINK WE HAVE A SAFE PRODUCT BUT I OBJECT TO THE CHLORINE SMELL AND THE CHLORINE BY PRODUCTS. EVERYBODY HAS A PERSPECTIVE ON BOTTLED WATER, THE BOTTLES, RECYCLING ETC.. — BUT ONE THING IS SURE, IF IT DOES NOT MEET STANDARDS IT IS RECALLED — AND WHEN THERE IS AN EMERGENCY, EVERYONE THANKS GOD FOR BOTTLED WATER. A-MEN.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Hey, that’s cool that you’ve been doing research, I’ve actually been looking for some articles and such that would point to the fact that tap water is safer than bottled water (especially if it’s filtered) and I was wondering, since your research seems to be of good quality, if you could perhaps send me a few articles or websites that you’ve come across. My e-mail is confusatron7@gmail.com.
Thank you,
Clement
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
DO YOU REALLY NOT WANT TO GIVE A CUSTOMER WHAT HE WANTS? ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE IS A PROFIT ATTACHED TO IT?
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
IF THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THE SARASOTA WATER IS IT RECALLED???? IF YOU PAY $1.50 YOU ARE NOT A THRIFTY SHOPPER — TRY BUYING A CASE OF 24 FOR UNDER $5
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
If plastics don’t break down how come they become toxic if reused? How come they leech into the bottled water over time? Something is fishy there.
On another point, the water would be taken out of streams and underground supplies, whether going to the Great Lakes or other lakes/seas/oceans anyway, for the people to drink. I don’t understand how putting it in bottles makes it worse for the environment. The water is being used up either way.
One must read the label carefully to know what is in the water and where it is coming from. Sometimes it is directly tap water not even filtered more. That is a total waste of money except as an emergency supply. If that is so, just use a washed milk bottle with your own tap water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I too drink filtered tap water at home (to remove both chlorine taste and as a cyst-removal safety precaution since cryptosporidium are chlorine-resistant). Since reading in “The Blue Death” by Dr. Robert Morris that more water is used to produce a 1-liter plastic bottle than it holds, I switched from buying bottled water outside the home to refilling and carrying a stainless steel bottle with filtered tap water from home, and thus have also avoided the risk of plastizers leaching into the water as with some forms of plastic bottles.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Wow, that’s great! I’m really interested in finding a good water filter too, but the ones on that site are too expensive for my budget. I don’t mean to be rude, but I was wondering if you could tell me how much yours cost you (about) and if you know any other good sites for water filters. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Clément
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
We can’t keep putting trash in the earth and the ocean. That is why I have filters on my taps at home and have used Klean Kanteen and SIGG (my fave) bottles for some time now versus buying bottled water. I use cloth napkins and dish clothes. It’s just about thinking … thinking of the earth as more than just a dump. I do my best to reduce, reuse and recycle.
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
water is the most clean way to help your body detox it self regaurdless of tap or bottle ,the goverment needs to require companies to lable the resource of the origanation of the water just like the food industries do oh are do they we need to track our whole body comsuption system from water food meds juice milk toothpaste ect we cant afford not to
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July 8th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
To answer Arvind’s question aout why it is worse for the environment when it is bottled, consider the energy used to make the plastic bottle, plastic wrap for the case and cardboard. Add in the petroleum (oil) for the plastic, the gas for the truck to deliver the cases to the store to mention a few other items. And if by chance the water in the bottle is municipal water the energy wasted in the process of treating it. I could mention many other items also.
Water treatment plant operators do an excellent job of managing their energy use in comparison. They have to since for many plants it is a large part of their overall costs.
I am lucky to have the Great Lakes water as a source and the City of Toronto treating it but I drink straight from the tap after aquick flush. Rarely from a Brita. Purchasing bottled water is completely unecessary to me.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I drink bottled water and creek water to avoid fluoridated tap water. The EPA union wants a moratorium on adding fluoride to tap water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
“I need to get in those 8 c./day and if i don’t like the taste, i won’t drink it.”
No you don’t. Humans can get water through many other sources such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Humans do not need 8 cups of pure water a day. That was some marketing scheme in order to get people thinking that they need to be drinking water all the time. The bottled water industry markets to people in a way to make people BELIEVE that they need to be drinking more and more water and to BELIEVE that it is only good if it comes from a bottle. Don’t, don’t, don’t believe the hype.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I drink filtered water from a counter top system, because bottled water is no better than tap and wastefull.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
before you believe what your friends say, KC, you should read the Drinking Water Quality Report that was published by DC WASA (thats water and sewage authority). Jump on their website, read the report and you’ll see that DC’s water is well within EPA’s regulated limits.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Bottled water is simply tap water from another location that has been transported. Bottlers ruin water systems in small communities while providing nothing better for the consumer. I live in San Jose California and we have good tap water.
The packaging is phenomenally wasteful and toxic to boot. A better question is why would I drink bottled water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
For convenience, bottled water for work outs. I had been using tap water w/a Britta water filter and was happy with it in the Pasadena area. Recently moved to the PHX area and the water tastes horrible even with a new filter . . . always drink bottled, now.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
aside from the terrible environmental impact bottle water creates, there is a huge economic impact for our household. for about the cost of a couple bottles of water, i purchased a refillable bottle (that was made in the usa) from wal-mart. as a nursing mother, i drink a couple gallons of water daily, and it is very convenient to have my half-gallon water bottle to carry around with me where ever i go. i am fortunate to live in a home that has well water, but when i used to live in the city, i would filter the water from the tap. perhaps if people do not enjoy the “flavor” of their home tap water, they could write to their city officials with suggestions, or formulate fund raisers (which could insight more people to kick the disposable water bottle habit as well) to get better technology for purifying their city tap water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
i am sick to death of seeing plastic bottles floating in the oceans
lakes, streams, mangroves, gulf.
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The water that comes out of my tap is always a bit cloudy, like a glass that once contained milk, refilled with water. And, there is a difference in taste!
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I have never bought bottled water. Tap water is free or close to it. Bottled water is also more contaminated w/ bacteria. Reusing the empty bottles is a source of serious illness. I found this out the hard way by reusing the empty bottles that my children had bought.
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I have good tap water over here. Though we still use a filter. It’s still much cheaper and the water doesn’t really differ from bottled water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
that is why itys so,economicial to drink tap water why buy bottle water that could be enviorementalyharmless,to people,our watersand the land.sincearily yours
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I choose tap water for then environment, for my pocketbook, for my health and for social justice. The bottled water industry contributed heavily to the environmental burdens laid upon our planet (~17 million barrels of oil go into producing the bottles. This does not include oil consumption related to distribution, which can be thousands of miles, ie. Fiji. ~86% of the bottles produced end up in landfills, roughly 3 billion bottles). Bottled water can cost 1000x more than tap water, and sometimes more than that. Studies have shown that bottled water is at best as safe as that from the tap, but often times not as safe due to the regulatory structure (NRDC 1999 report). Furthermore, as bottled water is chosen more and more over the tap, there is the potential for municipal water systems to fall into disrepair. This becomes a social justice issue when those who cannot afford to pay the premium for bottled water lose access to safe drinking water. The mayors of many of out great cities realize this, and have taken action to reduce reliance on bottled water and ensure adequate resources for the upkeep/improvement of municipal drinking water systems. Choose tap!
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Besides the fact that plastic is packing our landfills, using all that plastic keeps us tied to foreign oil, and to oil in general, a finite resource that causes terrible environmental destruction to produce. I have purchased refillable water bottles from camping supply stores and take them to work with me filled with tap water, which has been found to be safer in most cases than bottled water. Transporting bottled water across the US is using lots of fuel, again environmentally irresponsible. If the tap water does not taste so good in your community, buy a water pitcher made to filter your tap water and provide a clear, refreshing taste!
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July 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I drink filtered tap water whenever possible, but if I have a choice between plain tap water and bottled water, I choose the option that avoids the plastic, which is harmful in so many ways. I carry around a stainless steel container wherever I go, and fill up on filtered water before I leave the house. The pile-up of plastic bottles is destructive and completely unnecessary. If we are all so concerned about the quality of our water, then we need to clean it up and stop allowing companies to dump their toxic pollutions into our water supply. The irony is that most bottled water is really no “cleaner” or more filtered than regular tap water and the burden on the environment is inexcusable. This problem needs to be addressed immediately. There needs to be a nation-wide information campaign that addresses the dangers, wastefulness, and uselessness of bottled water.
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July 8th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I drink tap water at home. Question: what is the deal with re-using the plastic bottles?
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July 8th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Until about 10 or 15 years ago for all my life(I am 62) I never saw peoplr toting plastic water bottles about or giving them out for every conference, lecture etc. The water fountain worked just fine.!
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July 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I grew up on tap water from a private well, not knowing how privileged I was. I admit that i drank from plastic water bottles for a while, and got hooked on hydrating, but i rarely ever buy or take a plastic water bottle anymore. I moved to NYC now, and still drink the tap water, filtered or unfiltered. It may taste different, but unless the water is contaminated, i don’t care. I can’t take the plastic water bottle industry–it may be convenient at times to have access to them, but it’s gone overboard. I carry a stainless steel bottle with me everywhere and fill it at the water fountain or sink. Just google-image search pictures of plastic bottles in landfills and maybe you’ll do the same.
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July 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
No bottles for me unless there is no other safe source. Our home well water is very tasty and apparently safe (we’ve had it tested) even during last year’s severe drought. Our office taps are on city water and also tastes just fine, although the chlorine is difficult to adjust to when you aren’t used to it. Plastic bottles are such a waste of $ and resources.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I drink tap water mostly. The water in Bend Oregon has very few to zero impurities. I know this from having seen the results of the chemistry experiments performed at Central Oregon College and from attending a field trip to the Waste Water Treament Plant for the City of Bend. I think Bend’s tap water tastes good for city water. I grew up drinking well water which I still think tastes the best-even better than bottled water. I try to remember to pack my own water in re-usuable containers when doing some outdoor activity or travelling. I don’t like the idea of paying for water when I can get good water from the tap for almost nothing (We still have to pay the city for water).However, when I run out of or forget my own water, I will buy bottled water.
As a runner, I wish that there were more water fountains available like there use to be when I was a kid. What has happened to all the public water fountains?
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Several reasons led me to stop buying bottled water: first, the chemicals in plastic are toxic and flavor the water; next, the waste of resources producing and disposing of the plastic bottles is unacceptable; finally, the money wasted on bottled water seems foolish.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I chose to kick the watter bottle habit purely for economic reasons. Bottled water is a waste of money! I found some information on the public water in our area and determined that for myself and my family it was safe enough (with the add of a tap filter), and we have been drinking tap water now for 2 years. It wasn’t until recently that I even considered the plastic bottle a environmental hazard. Now, I not only drink tap water, but I patrol the woods in our area picking up plastic bottles and cans to recycle.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
i drink bottled or filtered water because America allows millions of gallons of raw sewage to be dumped , unfiltered , into our waterways yearly. our water infrasturctures are neglected and piping into buildings and homes are corroded and contaminated with whatever they come into contact with. yes , we have some great water filtration plants, but atre they filtering the medications that are dumped into our sewage systems? is the chlorination process helpful to the human body? until these matters are addressed ,i’ll stick to bottled or triple filtered.
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July 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
At home, I drink filtered tap water. At work and at the gym, I fill my reusable stainless steel bottle with water from the water fountains. I refuse to drink bottled water for two main reasons: 1.) It is immoral to charge money for the most abundant resource on the planet (especially when most bottled water does not conform to EPA standards for regular tap water). and 2.) Although plastic recycling is available in my city of employment and I do recycle everything that I can, the plastic water bottles that I am not using amount to that much less energy that will be required of the recycling process.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I chose to stop purchasing bottled water for a number of reasons. I am opposed to water as a commodity. I feel human beings have a right to free and unpolluted water and should not have to pay for clean water. I am equally opposed to the amount of waste that bottling water generates. 15 years ago, the only bottled water that could be found was relatively small quantities of spring water bottled in glass. Now people happily pay a dollar or more for 16 oz. of “purified” water that comes in a plastic container made from cheaply produced plastic bottles that litter our landscape and place even greater demands on our oil consumption. Using a stainless steel bottle to carry my charcoal-purified tap water makes sense in all kinds of ways. It is one small way I can reduce my carbon footprint and set an example for others to follow as well.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I have never been a daily purchaser of bottled water. As a matter of fact, I used the same bottle at work (refilling regularly) for 4 years. Now retired, I filter our well water with a Britta filter. WHen leaving home I put that water in a metal container and carry that. I do recycle all cans, plastics and paper although we have to transport them to the recycling center.
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
The water in Las Vegas may be safe, but it tastes terrible. I buy small bottles of water because they are easy to tote around. At home I have an RO system and that works fine.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Botteled water creates more waste, the water isn’t much different from tap, water privatization, and lowers attention to tap quality. Keep flouride out of our water!
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I use tap water, in conjunction with a water filter pitcher. It is easy and economical.
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July 8th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
We drink distilled water that we distill at home. Our tap water is horrible (even our county water commission says so), and bottled water besides being expensive, is not good for the environment.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I drink tap water 98% of the time because as a former microbiologist, “if I can’t taste the chlorine, I don’t know if it is safe to drink.”
Actually, our tap water tastes very good. I use bottled water for the convenience of the bottles and rinse and refill them as much as a dozen times until the bottle wears out. I view bottled water as a 12 to 25 cent (depending on sale price) inexpensive and convenient drink container.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
This is only my opinion.
You are right that having clean water available directly to our houses IS a service that is almost unique and taken for granted in America. However, it not only physically sets us apart from much of the rest of the world, it culturally and economically sets us apart as well. While probably 80% or more of what we do with water could use gray water rather than potable water, the cost of having two systems would be prohibitive for most people. The major difference is the relative lack of disease caused by being able to so readily wash our dishes and our hands before and after we eat.
Remember, the French concept of perfume and the appreciation of wines was because of their ABSENSE of running water. You drank wine because clean water was not available, and you use perfume because it was difficult to find enough clean water to bathe. Or is that “too much information?”
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Widespread reliance on bottled water for drinking purposes undermines reasonable duties of municipalities to maintain palatable and safe supplies of drinking water and to punish industrial polluters. Safe drinking water is a public service. Households unable to spend money for bottled water must rely on tap water and should be able to expect above-standard quality drinking water. Not buying bottled water is a way to support that right. Further, more water is wasted in production of bottled water than is actually sold in the bottle. Lastly, and obviously, far too many plastic bottles do not get recycled, ending up, among other places, in lakes, rivers, and streams.
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July 8th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I drink tap water for a number of reasons. First of all, it tastes just fine and is much cheaper than buying bottled water…that bottled water, by the way, is usually from someone else’s tap. But most of all, the environmental cost is much too high to buy bottled water. It depletes the local water systems from which the companies extract the water. The plastic for the bottles are full of carcinogens and making those bottles is very detrimental to the environment, not to mention the huge amounts of plastic now being added to the landfill for the next thousands of years.
Turn on your tap-it tastes good. I use a filter, just in case there is anything that got through the system, and for portability, I use, and reuse, aluminum bottles which are very, very good for travel.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I drink tap water only because it makes no sense to me to pay several hundred times more for bottled water. Even more importantly it doesn’t seem fair to me that we, as citizens of an industrialized country, think we have the right to use a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources. The production of plastic bottles and then the distribution of bottled water requires large amounts of fossil fuels which is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Who cares if it is safe when it tastes like chemical crap.
I am an environmental professional and spend my days
helping protect our water supply. I worked as the lead scientist for a reclamation district. I was a State certified water distribution
manager. When we finished treating our water supply which was
considered one of three pristine lakes left in America the water tasted like chemical crap.
Give me the clean crisp taste of Aquafina any day.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:43 am
I quit because of the Bisphenol in the bottles and the sea of trash floating in the Oceans.
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July 9th, 2008 at 1:11 am
I have so many reasons for refusing to drink bottled water. The environmental issues are huge–the oil and energy used to make the bottles, the waste of the bottles and the energy used to recycle the bottles are all problems. But maybe my biggest issue is the way that this bottled water industry has convinced us that we “need” bottled water. This is an industry that didn’t exist 20 years ago, and somehow we all managed, but now we are convinced that we will all die of dehydration if we don’t have a bottle with us every minute of the day. Since when did we have this need for water? We complain about the price of gas, but happily spend much, much more for something that should cost us nothing. I am also concerned that as we all drink bottled water, we will have no concern for the water supply in our communities. If the water supply is a problem, we should fix it, not simply buy bottled water for our family while the rest of our community suffers. Of course, bottled water isn’t safer–that’s the secret of the industry–lots of bottled water is tap water, and as a consumer good it isn’t regulated as strictly as the public water supply anyway. My 8 year old daughter is on a mission to convince people to quit listening to the advertisers and do what is right for the environment for a change. I hope she succeeds, but it’s a big fight.
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:15 am
I drink tap water (filtered through a Brita filter) and use a refillable bottle because it’s cheaper and more eco-friendly. Companies are ripping us off left and right, claiming that their water comes from natural springs when it’s actually filtered tap water. Plus, certain companies, like Dasani, add sodium to their water, which makes you thirstier (thus more likely to buy more water).
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:27 am
I choose to kick the bottled water habit because I remembered that for years I just re-used the same nalgene bottle and never paid a dime for water! I now use an aluminum bottle, a Brita filter and my faucet and still save a mint over buying individual plastic bottles at any store. The best part is that I have so many fewer trips to the recycling bin and have begun to think about what other areas I can make a change to help the environment and my finances.
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July 9th, 2008 at 7:29 am
I drink tap water for economic reasons now and like everone else started buying bottled water because everyone else was buying it
God Bless
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July 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am
My Monogram fridge has a filter built in — I always drink it when I’m at home. Oddly enough, I use tap water to fill my pets’ bowls, do you?
When travelling, I do enjoy drinking Fiji - yummy! It has a velvety taste as it includes a mineral - Silica. By the way, Evian tastes horrible.
Silica: http://www.fijiwater.com/SuperSilica.aspx
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July 9th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Here in my home everyone drinks tap water. It is safe (and I’m not sure I can say the same about the bottled one), cheap and does no harm to the environment. What other reasons do we need?
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July 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I cut back on drinking bottled water when I learned of the problems with chemicals in plastics leaching into the contained liquid (i.e., the water in the bottles). But it wasn’t until I learned of the environmental degradation and the use of petroleum in manufacturing the bottles that I swore off bottled water completely. I now use a stainless-steel bottle. Not only is the metal bottle reusable, but it also won’t leach chemicals into the water. My bottle is from http://www.enviroproductsinc.com, but I purchased it at my local food co-op.
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July 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I do not use bottled water however I have come to the conclusion that the water bottle and cel phones, which seem to go hand in hand, are the modern day pacifier.
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July 9th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I avoid bottled water to save money, cut needless plastic waste, cut transportation pollution and energy waste - the usual green reasons. But I also wish to avoid whatever traces of toxic stuff that might come out of plastic bottles, despite industry claims that there’s no “proof” of water bottle poison. (For similar reasons, I also stopped using cookware with aluminum or teflon, and stopped using deodorant with aluminum ingredients. There are plenty of other products to use.)
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July 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Though I have always recycled my plastic water bottles, I took the pledge to stop using them earlier this year. Aside from the pollution issue, there are serious health concerns about chemical leaching and tap water masquerading as spring water. It’s time for all of us to switch to metal bottles.
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July 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Jason - at our house people and pets too drink filtered tap water, to remove the taste but also traces of treatment like chlorine. Pets bodies are smaller than a child’s and therefore we assume they are probably even more sensitive to trace toxins. And the pets are very much a part of our family.
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July 9th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Bottled water is unhealthy and expensive, and filtered tap water is better. Do I need to go on?
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July 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am
C’mon… I love it when people live in fear like this! So where do you live? Mexico? Most US cities test their water regularly… Hey, you can turn to the well-traveled road of conspiracy theorists, but you’re still going to kick the can in the end.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
All of the reasons to not buy bottled water have been stated. Environmental, cost, etc. Plus, I just don’t want corporate control of a public resource. I recently road my bicycle from the Pacific NW to Iowa and never once purchased water. I just refilled my stainless steel bottles anywhere I could, include the restrooms in gas stations. Why? Because it was perfectly fine water to drink! Granted, the tap water from my part of the country tastes far better (to me) than water in the Midwest, but that doesn’t mean it’s not drinkable. Water is a public resource. Keep private control away from it. Remember, we lead the world in so many ways and what we do, others copy. Oh, and take the time to read “Thirst : fighting the corporate theft of our water” by Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufmann ; with Michael Fox.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I drink both tap and bottled water, depending upon where I am. At home, I drink tap water & refill a bottle to take to work. At work, I drink cooling-bottled water as part of a water club. The city water where I work is highly chlorinated and is not desirable to drink. My home water, which is from a very different system, is much better.
My family drinks tap water at home as well, but we also purchase bottled water. My kids take bottled water to school to drink during the day and at lunch. Sometimes the bottles come home and get refilled, other times they don’t. We also tend to buy bottled water when traveling or if the bottled tap water we brought with us has gotten warm - instead of purchasing soda or other drinks.
My husband is very sensitive to tastes, and would prefer to use bottled (but not all - some brands don’t have a good taste) or filtered water. Therefore, we are considering adding a filter to the home tap, but have not yet done so.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Tap water for the most part. On rare occasion I buy a bottle of water, usually on a road trip.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
We drink bottle water mainly for inertia, for habit to bubbling flavour.
Indeed, Rome tap water is safe, fresh and excellent, no only from faucet, even more from public fountains, the so-called “nasoni” (big nose, from the fountain frames).
Should be better for us to directly bottle water from fountains, keeping it inside fridge:I think eventually we shall do so!
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
We drink bottled water on the road, for the convenience. For example, when we drove through Death Valley last month, we didn’t see any roadside drinking fountains. Luckily, we had purchased “eco-shaped” (less plastic) bottles of water from . . a corporation that shall remain nameless. Of course, we recycled the bottles when we were done.
At home, we drink filered tap water. Buying bottled water when you can filter your own is wasteful.
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July 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I made the move to tap water for the cost savings as well as for the environment. I recycle but didn’t realize how many plastic bottles don’t get recycled. i only buy water now when there is no other option but still bring the bottle home and put in my recycle bin.
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July 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
All I drink is water and I almost never drink tap water. It is a fact that Chlorine and Fluorine are not healthy elements. Our local ground (drinking) water is also super high in dissolved solids and does not taste good even after sitting out to get rid of the Chlorine. We also have trace amounts of chemicals and chlorinating byproducts - I don’t want those either. I have an RO system at home and refill non plastic bottles as needed. It is great to have my own security on what I would consider pure water for my family and even the pets. Of course I recycle everything I can.
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July 9th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
My city has very good tasting water. It is tested regularly and we receive a report with our water bill. There is no reason for me to purchase drinking water. If I need to carry water with me I use a reusable water bottle which is safe unless subjected to extreme hot temperatures. Why spend money when I don’t have to?
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I drink bottled water for a couple of reasons - health and convenience. I would much rather drink bottled water because it does not have calories, caffeine, etc. People have to stop comparing tap water to bottled water. They should be comparing bottled water to what other beverages people would drink instead if bottled water is not available. Obesity is such a problem in the US, other drinks just fuel this epidemic. Not only are these competing drinks worse for your health, they fill up the landfills too and use more plastic-based materials per bottle than bottled water does. Next time you get a chance, look at the weights of a plastic bottle used for bottled water and then compare that to a carbonated soft drink bottle. The carbonated soft drink bottle weighs significantly more and they end up in the same place as bottles of water. As for convenience, bottles are easy to take on a trip, drink from while working in the yard, etc. The amount of water & electricity you save from not having to clean glasses used for drinking water offsets some of the energy used to produce plastic bottles. I think the media and government agencies need to find some other industry to pick on. When government and public policies start hindering the use of bottled water, all it is going to do is increase the use of drinks in heavier plastic bottles that are less healthy - doesnt make a lot of sense if you ask me.
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I drink tap water, and I strongly encourage everyone else to do the same. Not only is tap water very high quality in most cities, it is also much cheaper and better for the environment than bottled water. The manufacturing, packaging, and shipping of bottled water uses an extraordinary amount of resources and energy, which at this day and age we can’t afford to waste. On top of that, too few people recycle bottles when they are done with them. And even if you do recycle, that does not erase the environmental footprint (plus the recycling process requires energy).
I notice a lot of people argue that their tap water does not taste good. So get a filter. You will save yourself money, and you will help the environment.
So please, get a reusable bottle and fill it from your tap.
To learn more, visit Food & Water Watch’s website and read the report “Take Back the Tap”: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/pubs/reports/take-back-the-tap
I also encourage everyone to take the pledge and join the Take Back the Tap Campaign! http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/fwwatch/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=569
Thanks!
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
In our family we take the tap water and filter it through a water purifier. The water purifier is inexpensive and removes all of the contaminants, chemicals, minerals etc. that could be harmful. It is convenient and cost effective compared to buying bottled water and/or using the tap water which could have some down sides.
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I feel very fortunate to live in a place where clean, safe drinking water comes right out of the kitchen faucet. There are many places where this is not true and indeed many places where clean drinking water is not available at all.
I drink tap water all day at home and work from a sturdy green bottle I carry just about everywhere.
Besides feeling very fortunate, I also like to support my city and the city’s water treatment plant, who does an excellent job of making sure our water is safe and pure. Where would we be without this wonderful service? It truly is a blessing that most people take for granted.
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I work in a clinical lab. I read an article about the fact that tap water ( treated) weas as safe or even safer than bottled water
When I examined drops of each using a microscope, I noticed that there appeared to be mor microorganisms in bottled water than in tap water
I beleive our tap water is the safest water to use
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Filtered tap water here. After reading about the toxins that are released from plastic containers into water or food and the transportation pollution issues I was convinced. I would like to install a reverse osmosis filter in the kitchen to make tap water for drinking and cooking more pure. I use a small stainless steel thermos for carrying cool water when I need it.
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I first started drinking bottled water because my tap water in college tasted like sulfur, then I moved to a city where the water came out of the tap looking sort of rusty and I didn’t trust the pipes in my house, then I moved to another city and the tap water is wonderful. Now, I only use bottled water if traveling and then it is because I am lazy and it is easier than carrying and washing my own re-usable bottle and I can throw it away after use instead of carrying around an empty container. There are not convenient recycling bins throughout a city or in stores however so it usually goes right into the trash. If recycling were as convenient as just throwing it into the trash, I would recycle, but until that point I am going to just throw it in with the rest of the trash (most of which could be recycled).
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July 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I drink bottled water when away from home. On a hot day a few frozen bottles can be very refreshing, less expensive and healthier than a popsicle or soda pop. Also my doctor told me to stay away from well water for fear of contributing to kidney stones.
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July 9th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
i prefer tap water for many reasons. First of all at least tap water (I live in NYC which has one of the best tap water in a country) is being checked by government and has to adhere to set standards. I dont believe as much to corporations who have monetary interests and have comsumers believe their product is great and try to keep bad news away should something be found in their water. Second, I dont want to contribute to pollution by buying plastic when I can refill my glass container with filtered tap water. Less money should go to corporations and more to local governments for keeping our tap water at good standards and for protecting aquafiers
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July 9th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I bring water with me in a stainless steel container to reduce plastic manufacturing and use, prevent another Great Pacific Garbage Patch and protect all the sea critters!
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July 9th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
We drink tap water at home, because it is SAFER and a lot cheaper than bottled water. Tap water must meet stringent water quality standards in Iowa. Bottled water does not have any standards. Tap water is a lot cheaper than bottled water. If you multiply the $ 1.00 you pay for a 20 oz bottle of water, that would equal to $ 6.40 per galon of bottled water, which is a lot higher than public water supply. In addition, bottled water increases litter and unnecessary waste in landfills. We do have an activated carbon filter in our kitchen sink, to help improve the flavor of the water for drinking only or when making coffee.
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July 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I drink bottled spring water because the residual disinfectant in my tap water is chloramine, and there is considerable anecdotal evidence that chloramine in tap water can cause adverse health effects in humans — dermal (rashes), respiratory (asthma-like symptoms), and gastrointestinal. For more information, see chloramine.org and vce.org.
There have been NO scientific studies — by the EPA or anyone else — to determine whether chloramine in tap water causes these adverse health effects.
I do not drink bottled water that is not spring water, because it is just filtered tap water, which may well have had chloramine in it as the residual disinfectant. It is very difficult to filter chloramine from water, and I do not trust suppliers even to have the goal of filtering out chloramine, let alone the process control to do so reliably.
(I confess that when I eat out, I often drink coffee made from tap water. My water utility’s water quality bureau manager claims that coffee “neutralizes” chloramine, but no scientific study confirms it.)
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July 9th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I drink tap water because I think its imperative that we continue to use and protect our local water resources, and without local users government officials will not make it a priority. I have recently taken a pledge to no longer purchase plastic water bottles and will continue to fill up my Nalgene with tap water. I believe that plastic water bottles are unnecessary waste that are burdening our local community landfills and taking important water resources from local communities.
I hope the EPA and our elected officials will continue to help us protect our water resources and encourage other citizens to drink tap water and stop purchasing water bottles!
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July 9th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I filter our drinking water from the tap and use a corn-plastic bottle that comes with its own filter (available on the web) that can be refilled up to 90 times. The bottle is biodegradeible. It costs way less than bottled water and the taste is wonderful. Unfortunately, New York City water is being contaminated by runoff from devlopment sites that are too close to the reservoirs. The filter catches a lot of brown fine mud.
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July 9th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I drink from the tap simply because- I can. I mean, what’s the use of wasting an immense amount of fossil fuels to create plastic bottles which then more often than not go straight into land fills. There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking from the tap, there really is nothing to be afraid of. I’m definitely more so concerned about the toxins immited from plastic bottles, and the damage it does in fact have upon its drinkers. So, please, please, don’t fear that water from the tap, really. I can honestly say it is just as refreshing as that “fresh spring” water many pay so very much to drink.
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July 10th, 2008 at 10:16 am
We purchased a water pitcher with filter that we have in the fridge. We have 5 or 6 water bottles that hold 20 to 32 oz of water. We find it much easier to fill those up and reuse those over and over. They hold more water and are less expensive.
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July 10th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I drink tap water for several reasons: it is cheaper; it is just as clean (I live next door to 2 Great Lakes! It is good, clean, fresh water! I love Buffalo city tap water, next to New York City tap water!!); the water quality of municipal water is regulated (when it is not clear, if quality is regulated with the bottled water); the energy is not being expended to make the plastic bottles; the materials (plastic is a petroleum product) are not being used to drink a glass of tap water; fossil fuels are not being expended to transport the water bottles from plant to store; I’m not using plastic that may end up in a landfill; even if I recycle the plastic, it still takes energy, transportation costs, etc., to process it for recycling; I am drinking the water in my own watershed, not taking it from someone else’s watershed.
I used to by a few water bottles and then fill them with tap water, and re-use them that way, since it was a convenient way to carry water, but now it has been pointed out to me that the bottles were not meant to be re-used and may break down and not be healthy to re-use them. So now I use bottles that are meant for storing water and re-filling them.
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July 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I drink tap water when ever possible. Tap water is regulated by the EPA with very stringent standards. Water treatment plants must monitor for contaminants, residual chemical levels, and aesthetic qualities on a daily, if not hourly basis. On the other hand, bottled water is regulated by the FDA, and does not have to meet EPA water quality standards. Bottled water companies have to test their water source annually, and only have to test for contamination on a weekly basis.
Furthermore, I know that tap water is locally sources, not trucked across the country. Occasionally, if I do purchase bottled water (usually because of automatic sinks that don’t let you control water temperature!) I keep the container and reuse it. (Generally they go into my garden filled to various levels to scare away cats and keep the garden warm at night.)
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July 10th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I treat water & wastewater for a living & don’t trust any treatment system or any pre treated water source.
Most bottled water is cleaned to a point then chemicals are added for taste. China is in the bottled water business - hows that make you feel?
I buy treated city water & re treat it with a home system.
The bottle is another topic. Warren Short
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July 10th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I drink tap water. Where I live in the Sierra Nevada Mtns it is good surface water with little treatment done to it. I used to live in Davis and they have well water that is very hard and does not quench your thirst. So we had a filter system installed and only drank the water from the filter system.
I do drink bottled water but it is only when traveling or out of my home, like at the movies. I try to just fill a container from home that is safe to carry water and drink that but when it is gone I go to bottled water. My husband and I are sensitive to chlorine residue in the water so we dont usually drink the tap water when we are out of our own home.
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July 10th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Mostly filtered fridge water. Botteled water for kids when doing games.
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July 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I like my tap water. It is fresh & tasty. I rarly buy bottled water. In my opinion stored water is not as good as fresh “flowing” water. In majority of cases, bottled water is nothing more than filtered tap water.
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July 10th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
By and large we drink filtered tap water at home; I bought the filtration unit the day after we received a letter from our county water authority noting the there had been a “problem” with fecal coliform in the water supply! Since then, I don’t trust that system to be safe, even if it is cheap and easily available.
We do keep several gallons of bottled water on hand, as well as a lot of other supplies for use during hurricaine season. I will occasionally buy bottled water when I’m traveling, if I don’t want soda or juice.
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July 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I always drink tap water unless bottled is provided at some event for convienence. Those who use bottled water when the tap is available apparently have cash to burn. They still pay more for water than the price of gasoline.
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July 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I never drink tap. I carry a bottle of water w/ me always. I re-use the bottles, but eventually they do get pitched. I would never use a public fountain. I’ve seen gross things done to those.
Plus, I know it makes liberal-wackos crazy by using plastic and oil and filling in landfills and taking resources for us instead of leaving it for our great-great grandkids. There’s plenty there. If they’d be quiet, I would find an alternative. But, alas, they aren’t.
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July 10th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
WATER BOTTLES, like other plastic containers, are made from natural gas and petroleum, which are both nonrenewable resources. More than 1.5 million tons of plastic are used to produce PET, the plastic in water bottles. The manufacturing processes that produce PET cause serious emissions, affecting both the environment and human health. The Pacific Institute calculates that the process of making the plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. uses approximately 17 million barrels of oil per year. Most of those bottles then end up in landfills.
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July 10th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Unbelievable ans to the epa question about bottled water.
Come on…. just because you can’t TASTE the contaminants doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Many of these contaminants take decades to cause disease.
Shouldn’t the EPA have a financial responsibility to the public for not cleaning up the waters above and below ground that cause disease instead of raising the acceptable levels?
Cathy
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July 10th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I drink bottled for the taste and the fact that I am on the go. I need to drink a lot of water to combat kidney stones and it has to taste good for me to want to drink enough. Tap water has to heavy of process. I reuse bottles alot/fill them from larger bottles. By the way if the EPA would like to collect data on this subject- a survey is a way better tool than open ended rants
Stop bottling soda before water! I call soda FAT juice, empty calories that pack on the pounds! Glass water bottles are great!! Bring back more glass…
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July 10th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Why do I drink tap water? I decided to practice what I preach!
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July 10th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I drink and cook with bottled mountain spring water because the chloramine in our tap water causes me to break out in lingering rashes and also causes asthma attacks. The vapors from showering with tap water often brings on an asthma attacks in addition to causing red blotching swelling around my eyes, hands, feet arms, etc. I had no skin problems in my entire life prior to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission adding chloramine to bay area water supplies in February 2004. At first the reactions I had were minor, but as time has gone one the symptoms have become quite severe and debilitating. I have learned the SFPUC and the Federal Government have not tested the effects of Chlormine on people. I now have to use medications daily and am under constant medical care. I have to be especially careful not to get the rashes, which are open sores, exposed to germs as infections could cause my death accoring to the dermatologist and immunologist as my immune system has become compromised. Chloramine should be immediately removed from all water supplies. There are other safer methods of purifying our water supplies that the EPA and SFPUC ignores.
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July 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I drink only tap water. I use a metal thermos when I am away from my home and use soda fountain machines in convenience stores or just tap water when I need to fill up. I live on the Santa Fe River in North Florida. We had 4 more bottling companies desperately wanting permits last year to suck our water out to put it in plastic bottles to be shipped all over the world. We have 1 company here already that is permitted 1.728 million gallons daily to put into 8 oz. bottles. This business is clearly a luxury item worth billions in profit. We use a filter for our tap water at home because of the mineral qualities. PLEASE everyone out there…invest in your own filteration system and save yourself lots of money while saving our most precious natural resource…water.
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July 10th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I have 4 5-gallon jugs of Lake Arrowhead bottled water delivered to my house once a month. From these large jugs I get all my drinking water - I fill a stainless steel bottle from them that I carry with me when away from home. I hate the expense of this and the environmental cost of the delivery, and furthermore, the plastic in the jugs probably has that bad chemical that everyone has been screaming about recently. But since they went from chlorine to chloramine in the city water here, I have been especially afraid of the tap water. The chloramine is so poisonous that we are told not to use tap water in our aquariums or terrariums… so really, drinking it unfiltered does seem like a bad idea. But to filter chloramine is a lot more difficult than to filter chlorine. At least when it was chlorine a simple Brita filter would filter it out, and back in the cholorine days, that is what I used. But the chloramine can’t be removed except with a reverse osmosis job which is a pain - to do it for just one faucet costs in the hundreds of $$ and to do it for the whole house costs many thousands of $$. I suppose if I was going to spring for either of those significant investments, I would want to go whole hog and solve the problem of chloramine vapor in the showers as well. But the cost of doing that (ie. the many thousands $$) is just more than I can afford. Instead I shower with the window wide open and try to keep it down to 5 minutes. IWhen I stop and think about it I do realize it would be more economical to spring for a r.o. on just my kitchen faucet than to do the Lake Arrowhead delivery year after year, but then there is also the maintenance of the r.o. contraption, which I understand is a pain. I haven’t looked into this in awhile though - maybe r.o. systems have improved. Just writing this has made me put researching all that on my list.
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July 10th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Although I live near the most pure water sources in the country, by the time it gets to my tap it has both Chlorine and Chloramine added to it…with the EPA’s stamp of approval. These chemicals are not “safe.” Chloramine kills fish, causes bad skin reactions in many people, and has not been studied effectively. The EPA, like the FDA, has been hijacked by corporate interests and can no longer be trusted to protect Americans.
Period.
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July 10th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I pay bottle water because of the chloramine in my tab water. Chloramine affect my stomach.
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July 10th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Like Laurel in the post above mine, plastic bottles contain harmful petroleum chemicals and they are expensive to make and when they end up in landfills they take a long time to break down.
I use glass bottles to hold my chilled purified water that I purify with a Brita filter at home. I also use purified water for coffee, juice, etc.. Glass bottles can be sterilized in the dishwasher periodically.
I save valuable resources this way, and am not contributing to the problem with petroleum products, pollution, and harming our bodies.
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July 10th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
At home, I can only drink bottled spring water. My community uses chloramine (also known as monochloramine) to clean it’s water. When I drink water that has been purified with chloramine, it does horrible things to my stomach (so painful that it is hard to eat at times) and the rest of my digestive tract. For some people, they develop diarrhea, but for me it causes severe constipation- (no bowel movement for 2 weeks is not fun). This is the same chemical that kills fish if used in aquariams. In a sense, I am lucky because I don’t have any skin or lung reactions like others.
I wish that I could drink tap water, but until they stop using it, it’s bottled spring water only for me (including using it to cook and wash all fruits and vegetables).
When I go away, if the community does not use chloramine (I have to call each water department to check) then I drink tap water.
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July 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I drink bottled water because my tap water is treated with chlorine and then ammonia to generate chloramine. The water district announced this some years ago and indicated that neoprene linings and washers in the house’s plumbing lines probably would deteriorate in time due to the treatment. That does not sound like something I want in my digestive system.
Also dimethyl amine, a very common chemical incorporated in many drugs, and pesticides as well being released by rotting fish reacts with chloramine to generate UDMH, the ALAR bugaboo. None of these points were considered in getting approval for water treatment with chloramine. Most clean-up treatments of water may not trap chloramine so I drink bottled water. Dr. J. Singmaster, Envirionmental Toxicologist, Ret.
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July 10th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I took a quick read of people’s posts and am surprised by the overwhelming faith that people have in tap water. I once was able to drink and bathe in my water before the EPA recommended the addition of chloramine as a disinfectant in municipal water sources. Since the addition of chloramine (chlorine+ammonia) into the San Jose water system, I have developed severe dermal reactions that make my water, coming out of my tap, a health hazard.
I am not alone. More and more people are experiencing strange rashes, gastrointestinal and respiratory challenges in response to the chloramine additive. Even with a $1500 whole house filter designed for the removal of chloramine, I still can not use my water. Symptoms reduce somewhat but are not enough.
While chloramine allergic sufferers are in the minority, all of us may be impacted by the silent affect of lead being leached out of the lead solder in pipes through the chloramine.
EPA your job is to protect our water quality. I resent that you are not taking the issue of mounting evidence of acute chloramine allergies into serious and immediate consideration and action. When my tap water does not make me sick, I will happily use it again. In the meanwhile, I am forced to buy spring water and fill up my eco-friendly water bottle.
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July 11th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I have hypothyroidism, and there is strong evidence that fluoride is a toxin that can affect the thyroid. Therefore, I avoid tap water most of the time to try and reduce my exposure to fluoride. There is a lot of evidence supporting the idea that fluoride may be dangerous when it accumulates in the body over many years. There is little to no evidence, in my opinion, that ingesting fluoride is a healthy practice. Brushing our teeth with fluoride toothpaste may be fine, but having it accumulate in our tissues and organs can’t be good. Moreover, the addition of chloramine may cause health problems as well. But don’t take my word for it — just GOOGLE “fluoride” and see what comes up! Read a little on the subject and make your own opinion!
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July 11th, 2008 at 1:48 am
I must purchase bottled water for drinking and cooking. I can taste the chlorine/chloramine in the water. Boiling water for cooking, I can smell the chlorine/chloramine, it bothers me, it upsets my stomach and I can taste it in the food and I can feel the chemical’s effects in my throat. I take QUICK showers because breathing this sets off my asthma. Absorbing this through the skin - is chloramine categorized as a hormone disruptor? it is a chemical.
I am forced to pay higher rates for tap water because water depts are trying to force conservation and in the meantime I have to waste tons of money buying water to drink. Chloramine is ammonia and chlorine. Consumers are warned not to use the chloramine tapwater if they have compromised kidneys, people are warned not use this water for tropical fish. What does this tell you?
These are chemicals and we shouldn’t be forced to use chloraminated water because this is a cheaper method of disinfecting water. This doesnt prevent secondary contamination of stored water that was previously disinfected with chloramine.
This process is used because somebody “said” it worked and was cheaper - not because it was tested in any valid fashion. Would you give your child water from a gallon jug that you’d dropped a bit of bleach and ammonia? though a simplistic description, the result is abt the same. You can taste it - especially if the water is heated.
Consumers should have input in this process. Most of us are making a valiant financial effort and cutting out other things so taht we dont drink water that has undergone the chlorine/ammonia process. This appears to be the same brain trust that brought mtbe’s to fuel and destroyed $200,000 truck motors in 50,000 miles though such vehicles were designed to function/work for hundreds of thousands of miles. Let’s not forget DES - the miracle drug for pregnancies and doctor-supported smoking to calm the nerves in the 1950’s.
We’re not sheep and we’re not lemmings.
Please Listen to the public.
You don’t know what other results will come to light from drinking and absorbing these chemicals by ingesting it or through the skin. Keep autistic children in mind - these are chemicals and the public is not even being considered as guinea pigs. This is just forced on the public.
Use of chloramine should be shelved until true, accurate and verifiable research can be conducted, not by because it was proposed by a consultant who was in actuality “blowing smoke”.
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July 11th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Actually, you are apparently one of the fortunate ones that cannot taste or smell the chloramine in the water or you live in a district that does not use chloramine to disinfect it’s water.
This isn’t about Perrier, or Evian, this is about spring water that hasn’t been forced through a process using chlorine followed by ammonia.
Next time you boil water - smell the water. Has your tea or coffee changed in taste over the years?
it might not be your taste buds or the quality of the coffee. It may be the water. By the way - chloramine causes other joyous problems - it makes pits in your pipes. It makes holes in pvc pipe. It destroys all rubberized parts in all of your water-using appliances,
washer, hot water heater, refrigerator/ice maker, hoses, etc.
This is not something you should take lightly. Actually, you might research the subject. This situation may have already cost you quite a bit of money.
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July 11th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I drink “bottled” (it’s from a water store) because it tastes better. But I don’t worry about drinking from the tap if need be.
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July 11th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I drink steam distilled water mainly because it is the healthiest. I guess this puts me in the tap water category, although before I bought my distiller I was buying distilled water. On the go, I carry a stainless steel water bottle filled with distilled water. The distiller has a filter for those things that can cross in the distillation process. My concerns with tap water: chlorine, floride, pharmaceuticals, etc. I went the extra $$ for the stainless steel water bottle because of the environmental irresponsibility for plastics which I’m gradually phasing out of all aspects of my living (talk about a tough job!). Considering the cost of bottled distilled water, my distiller paid for itself in less than a year.
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July 11th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I understand some concerns with the quality of municipal tap water. I also understand that water is a basic human right and a public good. I refuse to pay a private corporation to waste water and resources to mass produce disposal bottles, draw water from ‘somewhere else’ with little investment in local ecosystem, transport those bottles and that water miles away and profit from a consumer marketing scheme that devalues the process of something so essential to life.
I drink tap water for moral and practical reasons. I believe that any concerns about tap water should be addressed by investing in public systems rather than avoiding the issue by buying bottled water and dirtying someone else’s stream (wasting non-renewable resources, depleting waterways for profit, and polluting the planet for future generations).
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July 11th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I exclusively drink bottled mineral water and reverse osmosis water I buy in bulk at the grocery store, because of the chemicals in tap water. I’m disabled by chemically injuries from pesticides and other synthetic chemicals, which sensitized me to such chemicals, and compromised my respiratory, immune, and central nervous systems.
The water where I live has chloramine (chlorine and ammonia) and fluoride added to it, neither of which can be taken out by a little pitcher filter, and filters that do take these chemicals out are very expensive to buy and maintain, and not affordable on limited disability benefits. As a result I buy reverse osmosis water in bulk and bottles of mineral water to still get some of the natural minerals reverse osmosis also removes along with chemicals.
I don’t know where people are getting that tap water is free… I have to pay a lot for my toxic tap water!
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July 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Someone commenting here claimed concern about fluorine in tap water, and it seems like fluorine treatment could be dropped now that so many fluoride dental products are available. Why continue the forced fluoridating of water at some expense, when people now can make their own decisions about it and use whatever product they choose.
I should have mentioned in my previous comment(11:06 PM yesterday) that I drink bottled SPRING water as I am not sure if the various tap water cleaning processes that go into bottled “drinking water” products from various companies removes chloramine.
Dr. J. Singmaster, Environmental Toxicologist, Ret
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July 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
In the San Francisco Bay Area, they put a toxic compound (chloramine) into the water. The day they did, it killed all the fish in my apartment’s pond.
The compound is known to be deadly in high doses. They *claim* it is safe in low doses. Why? Because there is no *proof* that it isn’t. Why is there no proof? Because there have been *no studies*. Except us. We’re the study. Because the issue is not immediate and obvious ill effects, but rather subtle, long term ill effects.
Why would I drink that stuff? I decline to participate in the experiment, thank you very much.
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July 11th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I drink tap water at home and in public, if I can find it. I am diabetic, and also do not drink caffeinated drinks, so often the only thing that I can drink at a public place or function here in Southern California is bottled water. I then save the plastic bottle and refill it with tap water. I keep two refilled bottles in the cup holders in my car. At home I drink some water from bottles, but they are not plain water. I like carbonated beverages, but few meet my taste or dietary restrictions, so I make my own by adding a small amount of juice, usually unsweetened pure pomegranate, to seltzer water. After intense exercise I drink a product called Smart Water because it has the electrolytes, but no sugar. I can’t have Gatorade. All empty plastic bottles that aren’t refilled get recycled. Canned water is hard to find here, but is great because you can store it for earthquake preparedness, it has a longer shelf life, and you don’t worry about leaching as much plasticizers from the plastic can lining as from the plastic bottles.
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July 11th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I would happily drink tap water since the city I live in allegedly has one of the purest supplies in the US. Well, except for the fact that two toxic industrial chemicals are “legally”added to it - fluoride, derived from the production of aluminum & of phosphate fertilizers; & chlorine (poisonous enough in its gaseous state to lead the CDC to call it “a potential agent for chemical terrorism.”) A recent study at the Univ. of Birmingham (UK) discovered that “chlorine in tap water ‘nearly doubles the risk of birth defects’ .”
I will not knowingly or willingly ingest poisons! Both fluoride & chlorine are harmful to human health and the environment. For fluoride, see http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-facts.htm. For chlorine, see
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/chlor-eng.php
Then there’s the little matter of recent studies that have revealed traces of human & animal pharmaceuticals discarded & excreted into US water supplies. Sedatives, specifically, in the case of my city’s supply, but many municipal water supplies are far more contaminated. Government agencies at all levels - for various reasons - have failed to adequately monitor, test, & clean up drinking water from public or commercial sources.
Regarding bottled water, I agree wholeheartedly that it’s a serious environmental problem & no solution to the clean-water dilemma. We know that corporations peddling the bottled stuff often take the water from municipal supplies (frequently without paying for it - isn’t that theft??), and without testing or purifying it just put it in those shiny plastic bottles that have become as ubiquitous as cellphones, then peddle it to the gullible. One consequence - for those of you who remember public drinking fountains - is the wholesale disappearance of those conveniences, as cellphones have led to the virtual extinction of pay phones.
I drink distilled bottled water (bought by the gallon) but the company whose water was tested by & considered among the purest by the NRDC has recently gone out of business, and I don’t want to continue contributing to plastic production. I’m looking for the most effective, economical, enviro-friendly way to purify tap water. Steam distillation seemed best until I considered the consequences of using more electricity & many hours to produce a small supply. Ongoing research is leading me toward reverse osmosis…
I absolutely agree with Canary’s comment that tap water is NOT free! We just had a 14.5% increase in rates here after a similar hike just last year, & water shortages (exacerbated by the corporate privatization of H2O, climate change, population growth…) are likely here to stay.
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July 11th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I drink tap water only because bottled water is creating a hugh disposal problem. It turns out that 90% of the bottles that contained water are thrown in the trash and end up in land fills. Unfortunately people are not recycling these bottles as they could.
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July 11th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I drink bottled water, not for taste, but out of necessity. The water district in my area has switched to chloramine as a disinfectant, and it wreaked havoc with my body. If I drink it, I have heartburn. If I shower with it, I get large purple blisters on my skin which get worse with each shower. If I inhale the steam from a hot shower or from my washer, I develop breathing problems - I begin coughing, wheezing, and gasping for breath. At one point it felt like I was beginning to have asthma.
Therefore, I can’t even wash with my tap water, and I need to go to my son’s house to fill up 3-gallon bottles with his well water. At one point, I let my tap water run into my eyes in the shower, and they were swollen by the next day. One of them was swollen shut. Also at this time, my lymph nodes swelled up, and I had to go to the emergency room to get help. My mouth and throat were so swollen I was afraid my breathing passages would be swollen shut….
So drinking bottled water is not a luxury for me - it is a necessity. Even though there is no way of telling what is in bottled water, I’d rather take my chances with it.
EPA - please get this crap out of my water.
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July 11th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Access to healthy tap water should be one of the staples in life that our citizens and government are paying close attention to. Please, let us all focus on LONG TERM LIFE….for generations far beyond us. Having this in mind when planning should help things out, yes?
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July 11th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I drink our city tap water because it taste fine. I occasionally buy bottled water for convenience, then reuse the bottles for as long as I can before recycling them. Some bottled water is so over-filtered that it tastes like nothing. I like a little natural mineral flavor in my water!
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July 11th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Tap water has flouride, and this is ghood for your teeth. Tap water is free, and all you need with it is a bottle. All the discarded water bottles people finish creates more pollution.
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July 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
You can carry a reusable container which makes it just as convenient and less expensive.
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July 12th, 2008 at 12:03 am
I suggest a Klean Kanteen, a great stainless steal bottle for your filtered water out of the tap.
-Amelia
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July 12th, 2008 at 12:13 am
I am almost 80 years old and all my life I have always had a
canteen and filled it with tap or spring water. I am horrified
by how easy corporations such as Pepsi and Coca Cola convince people to buy water that in many cases is more expensive than
gasoline. It is a shame that most people do not consider the consequences of their actions…
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July 12th, 2008 at 12:24 am
I drink tap water filtered through a brita filter pitcher. Tastes great, cheap. The tap water here (DC area) is reliable, tastes fine, but the filtering makes it taste better. No unnecessary costs, packaging, fuel emissions from transportation…
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July 12th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Most places that I have lived or visited throughout North America have completely safe and good tasting municipal drinking water. You could add a few drops of lemon juice, etc. if you want to improve the taste. Buying bottled water is actually not safer since municipal supplies have to meet higher standards than bottled water. And buying bottled water necessitates the production and use of millions of plastic bottles which cause pollution in the manufacturing process and then are just thrown away and don’t biodegrade. A reuseable bottle and tap water will save you mucho dinero and it’s much better for the environment.
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:49 am
I use water that is filtered from my tap, since it does not taste good without being filtered. When I am on the go, I have old plastic bottles, which I have saved when I was placed in a situation where I had to buy a bottle of water to get a drink. I save the bottles, take them home, and clean them and fill them with the filtered tap water and put them in my fridge for future use.
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July 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I drink tap water and fill my own bottles when we go places. Our city has great water and it tastes great too. And if I do buy bottled water while out I always recycle the bottles.
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July 12th, 2008 at 10:53 am
My family prefers tap water to any other type of water. We have a well and the water is wonderful for drinking… it is a bit hard, but it tastes great. We go out of our way to avoid purchasing water. In part because of the expense, and in part because we are all making an effort to use less plastic and to create less waste. We purchased several Klean Kanteen water bottles a few years ago and have been using them ever since.
I wish it wasn’t so expensive to have our well water tested.
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July 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Refilling plastic bottles is damaging to both your health and the environment! The reason the FDA has a numbering system is to insure that bottles that cannot be refilled (which is basically everything except for a #4 bottle) BPA can leach from the plastic membranes and store toxins.
The Solution to conserving global plastic waste from bottled water can be found at BACK TO THE TAP….FOR A HEALTHIER PLANET.
This Sports Bottle will “Filter As You Drink” and since it is in a safe refillable #4 plastic container that offers replacement filters - you can save a ton of money and an average 1000 bottles of potential waste - per consumer a year.
BACK TO THE TAP is a non-profit organization who is dedicated to providing filters and bottles to those without safe drinking water. 1.00 of every purchase goes to Earth Share. Visit http://www.backtothetap.com
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July 12th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I drink tap water. I live in the desert and strive to be a steward of the desert landscape and resources, esp water. Bottled water is ubiquitous and insidious, and an elitiest product. I rarely see a Navajo with a bottle of Evian, Fiji, or Arrowhead.
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I almost never drink bottled .We have well water that is awesome. At work we a bubbler but I seldom use it because it tastes like city water and each bottle tastes different.I work in a landfill so I know first hand how few bottles get recycled.Its so insane how wasteful we are in CT. We even get water bottles with Water Still In Them!!!It must be nice to be rich and thoughtless.
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
The reasons I do not drink bottled water are:
I don’t eat food or drink water from plastic containers. It has been shown that most plastics leach chemicals that are not good for our health. Even if it might be minute qualtities of these chemicals, there have never been studies on the long term effects on our bodies.
I do filter my tap water with a high quality filter, and it tastes wonderful.
I also do not want to deplete our natural resources (consume spring water) and I don’t want to add to the human footprint on our environment (manufacturing bottles, shipping product)
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Tap water! I live in Elgin, Illinois. I do have a filter on the faucet. Tap water is free (I rent). Also, I try not to waste much–usually I only have to take out the garbage and recycle once every two weeks. If I used bottled water all the time I’d be taking recycling out way more often. It is wasteful.
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July 12th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
If you check out Food and Water Watch, you will realize what a scam bottled water is. It’s basically tap water, but worse. Worse for you, worse for the environment, worse for our addiction to oil, etc… So I bought a Kleen Kanteen and drink water out of that most of the time. I also keep 2 reused glass Sobe bottles full of tap water at my desk at work.
I know there’s a stigma about tap water being dirty and disgusting, but I think corporations trying to privatize our most important public resource is much worse.
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July 12th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
We drink bottled water - we have well water and I don’t trust the filtration system - although we use the house water to bath and do laundry. Before the house filter and softener the water is hard, has significant iron, and occasionally hydrogen sulfide related odor.
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July 12th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I drink tap because the local water is very good quality. We have a couple of problems with some MTBE, perchlorate, and BTEX plumes but the municipal water supplier blends it to control the concentrations. I’ve got a coworker who refuses to drink tap. He argues that, even though the water is from the same sources (read the labels) the distribution through the bottles poses a much lower threat of contamination during the distribution in the pipes.
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July 13th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I filter my Elmira, NY tap water with a Pur pitcher then drink if from my Sigg bottle. My household cooks with and drinks local spring water. The cats in my household drink also drink the spring water. (The spring water is dispensed via a water cooler in reusable bottles.)
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July 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Tap water for me. Sort of.
I’ll buy a flat of the 1/2 liter bottles of bottled water. Put about 12 of them in the fridge, and drink those through the day. But when I’m done with them, they sit on the counter and get refilled in the evening and back in the fridge for the next day. We have a charcoal filter on all house water, and then a reverse osmosis (R/O) unit at the sink. The water is excellent.
One flat of bottles (35) will last me through the spring and summer and then some. The benefit is that 1/2 liter (16oz) is a nice size to gulp down when its hot. And easy to carry around. The benefit of doing the plastic bottles is that I don’t have to worry about them getting trashed. If one gets crunched a little too much, it gets recycled and I grab a new one to add to the current batch in use. I can take them with me to events and give them to friends without having to worry about asking for the bottles back. But overall, they get refilled and reused many, many times. I use on average 6 bottles/day, and maybe lose/recycle one bottle/week.
Best of both worlds, in my experience.
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July 13th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I never like to drink bottled water. I drink regular tap water for reasons of economics and what those plastic bottles would do to our environment if we dont recycle them. When I was growing up in a city where the population had outgrown the infrastructure that was setup and where tap water is rationed due to the governments inability to keep up with the demands, any safe drinking water would do. When we were kids, we used to drink water from regular garden hose attached to tap water faucet when we are out playing in the yard. Drinking cold water was a luxury so I had to do what was available to quench my thirst. Soda, while affordable was not in our family’s list of priorities especially coming from a family of ten (10) children with a early widowed mother who was the sole bread winner. I am already a senior citizen and I have survived growing up on resources that were only available at that time. Nothing beats the US army drinking canteen that were left behind in abundance after we won the war from Japan. It was my water container that I brought to a Jesuit school everyday that I attended. It sure came in handy whenever I was thirsty. I could drink water right inside the classroom without disturbing anybody…..
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July 13th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I drink ONLY BOTTLED SPRING WATER. I would be dead now if I were still using our tap water in the S.F.Bay Area in California. For many, chloraminated water has proved to be an irritant to the skin and mucous membranes and can damage and inflame the tissue-it appears to be an allergy but is not. The skin, respiratory and digestive tract symptoms have been reported across the U.S.
and world with chloraminated water. Denver has used chloramine since 1917, but at a low ratio. See website http://www.chloramine.org.
There is no reserch by the EPA to prove chloramine is safe. This is
an expense I could do without, but to stay alive, I have no choice.
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July 13th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I have recently moved to the US, and cant understand why people spend a lot of money on buying bottles that harm their environment! Filtered/distilled tab water is the best choice for me.
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July 13th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I drink tap water simply because its better for the environment!!!!
To me its pointless going to the grocery store to pay for water and even when your out of the house you still can carry a reuseable bottle with you instead of taking a water bottle and end up throwing it away because most places won’t have recylcing. It just creates more waste.
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July 13th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I would like to add to my above comments to clarify the life and death issue I have with chloramine. I have the digestive tract
problem. My symptoms were extreme belly bloat, complete loss of energy, diarrhea and excruciating pain. Chloramine went into our water system in Febr.2004. My doctors and her consultants could not uncover what was causing my symptoms. Blood tests still reveal a problem, but no cause after 4yrs.5mos. Accidentally
in April 2006, I discovered my symptoms were caused from our tap water. I was a couch potatoe, not even able to tend to all my personal needs on a consistent basis. One day I doubled over in
such pain I was crying and my husband knew I had to really be in
pain because that was not something I did. I refused to see the
doctor. Each time I drank the tap water, about 20 min. later I was
in pain for about 40 min. Finally I asked my husband to get me
some bottled water. I did not know what else to try. My pain was
gone with the first glass I drank. My energy came back in about 3
days and the diarrhea disappeared in about 3 weeks. The belly bloat has never gone away totally. I have lost part of my colon
which cannot be proved that chloramine was a contributing factor but now that I have a 4yr. plus track record, I am convinced that
chloramine could very well have been the “straw that broke the camel’s back” so to speak. I did notice in late 2006 that when I ate certain canned or processed foods, my symptoms recurred.
I determined, by calling the manufacturer and then the city where the processing of these foods took place, which foods did contain
chloramine. This helped to control the chloramine I ingested. At
times I can unknowingly ingest chloramine - Medication being one
way. This came as a big surprise, but I knew the medication I
drank for a cat scan had to have chloramine in it. When the company checked for me chloramine was in the source water and
this was in Canada. After drinking this medication, my belly bloat
has never decreased. I must watch what I eat and drink. We wash our fruits and vegetables and cook with Bottled Spring
Water. My doctor has written a letter stating what she observed
after I discovered the chloraminated water problem. She is now
going to write a letter for me to keep with me at all times. For me
to be in the hospital now with the doctors not understanding about chloramine, is definitely a life threatening situation for me.
I would much prefer to be able to use our tap water but as long
as chloramine is used, I dare not. I will take my chances with all
the bad stuff in the plastic bottles rather than what I endure with
our chloraminated tap water.
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July 13th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I drink tap water because it’s safe and free. Another reason is because oil is used to manufacture the plastic bottles for bottled water, and when they break down toxic chemicals are released. Also I heard that many companies that bottle water take it from public water supplies.
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July 13th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
We no longer use bottled water to cut down on our use of plastic bottles. We use reusable water bottles if traveling.
In the past we used Brita-filtered water for drinking water but now just use tap water because the Brita filters are not recyclable.
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July 13th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
We purchased a refrigerator that dispenses filtered water. It removes a variety of “things”, and works quite well. The filter is changed every 6 months.
I won’t drink bottled water because I find plastic to be a huge ecological problem.
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July 13th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
For some reason my comments have disappeared from your blog
site. I am going to try again. I use ONLY BOTTLED SPRING WATER
for drinking, washing fruits & vegetables and cooking. Chloramine was added to our tap water in Febr.2004. I started having intestinal difficulties in about April. I was extremely ill by 2005 with my symptoms being extreme belly bloat, complete loss of energy, diarrhea and excruciating pain. Many tests were done by
my doctor and consultants, but to this day they have not been able to determine the cause. I accidentally discovered these symtoms were a result of drinking our tap water. After doubling
over in excruciating pain in April 2006, I tried bottled spring water. I drank one glass and I had no pain. This was remarkable
and within 3 days my energy was back. My diarrhea left in about 3 weeks, but the belly bloat never left completely. I discovered
that even some of the canned and processed foods I ate caused
my symptoms to return. I called the manufactures of these foods
and then the city where the processing took place. In this manner
I learned which foods contained chloramine. I even ingested a trace of chloramine through a medication and from my reaction to
it, I checked. The water source was chloraminated. Many believe
that chloramine can be filtered out of the water - Not l00%. There
is always a residual. The National Sanitation Foundation has only
certified 15 filters to remove chloramine - They guarantee 83% is
removed, and there are some very costly whole house filters that
do remove about 99% of the chloramine. The chlorine is not a big problem to remove but the chloramine is-a chemical compound
of chlorine and ammonia-the ammonia is the problem. My doctor
is very aware of the health improvement I experienced after I
discovered the chloraminated water problem and switched to the
bottled spring water. I am aware of the contaminants in plastic, but I will take that chance over the immediate life threatening
situation I have with chloraminated water. There is no research
to back up the EPA’s claim that chloramine is safe. No studies have been done on skin, respiratory and digestive tract symptoms. I would like nothing better than to use tap water. At age 77, this is a financial burden my husband and I do not need. To move to an area without chloramine would be a blessing but
there is nothing to guarantee that the location we choose will not
end up switching to chloramine. I highly recommend anyone who
is reading my blurb go to website http://www.chloramine.org and learn
about the health impact of this chemical called chloramine.
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July 13th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I buy bottled spring water once I found out that chloramine (ammonia and chlorine) was being used as a disinfectant instead of chlorine. There have been NO scientific studies on the effects of chloramine on skin, respiratory and digestive systems. Until those studies are done, it is not right to use chloramine. This switch from chlorine to chloramine was made in the San Francisco Bay Area in early 2004 and the number of people with adverse health effects is growing. Although I recycle the and reuse the spring water bottles, it is crazy to go to these lengths to avoid tap water.
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July 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Bottled water is obviously more convenient. You can carry it with you everywhere, you can grab a bottle in the office/gym, you can buy one almost anywhere, and it takes less time/thought than carrying around a resuasable water bottle. However, people need to start putting in a little more effort or “going out of their way” to change our habits. These habits need to change, because our current bahavior is at the expense of the environment. Using tap water and carrying around a reusable bottle can take a bit omre effort but takes getting used to. This reliefs the planet of unneccessary waste and fuel/oil used to transport water across the country (and water is very heavy!)
why buy watered bottle (which is much much more expensive), when tap water is delivered right to our homes!?
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July 14th, 2008 at 1:22 am
I live in Adelaide, Australia. Where possible I drink rain water. It’s so sweet. Where it’s not possible, I tolerate the tap water because I refuse to pay for bottled water. I’m lucky enough to live in a city where the tap water is safe to drink, if not always the tastiest. We’re the driest state in the driest continent, so water is something that is a highly respected commodity. Nevertheless, to me the impact of carting bottled water is an environmental nightmare!
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July 14th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I have many reasons I don’t drink bottled water:
1. Former EPA RA, DeVillars (EPA New England - Region 1) got on NPR in the late 1990s, bless his heart, and urged the public NOT to drink the public water provided by MWRA. The greater Boston area is served by the MWRA, a surface water intake source from the Quabbin, in western MA. His recommendation was based on the high levels of chloramine in the water, which have been linked to contact dermatitis and asthma. He also questioned, if memory serves, even showering in this water! Scientists know that chloramine in swimming pool studies of swimmers shows chloramine to be a tricky thing. And given that there are not any good bioinformatics studies on chloramines - is it appropriate to be drinking it, when we at least know it causes intestinal disymbiosis, prehaps even in small doses? Symbiosis - this refers to the resident populations of bacteria in the gut. There are “good” bacteria and “bad” bacteria. Chloramines kill off the “good” and “bad” bacterias, and guess what - the bad grows back 1st. This is the same problem we’re having w/ antibiotics - are we creating “Superbugs,” that will eventually be immune to antibiotics? To chloramines? Is this why we’re having problems with staph infections, even in our own hospitals?
2. Most restaurants are NOT filtering their water for patrons. Not to mention the high levels of chloramine, at least in the greater Boston area, the water takes icky! Should I - when paying at least $20 - $100 for a meal, be drinky yucky tasting, foul-smelling water? You may be interested to know, that Starbucks filters water coming into its stores. Could this be the secret of Starbucks?
3. VOCs, SVOCs, PESTS/METALS, and pharmaceuticas are allowed in the drinking water at low levels. What’s really safe? How do we know? What are the current detection levels in laboratories, anyway? And what does this tell us about what’s safe, aside from what we don’t know yet?
My personal suggestion, as an environmental scientist, is to drink bottled water (if you know the source to be good) UNLESS you have adaquate filtering. If you install a filtering system in your house - install it PRIOR to the hotwater heater. If you go to a restaurant, especially in the Boston area, ask if they filter the water. If they don’t INSIST on bottled. Bring a bottle of bottled - and insist on a glass to pour it in. You deserve to drink safe, good-smelling water.
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July 14th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I forgot to mention that Coke has a wonderful new plant down south - they are fiendishly collecting soda bottles and water bottles - “just can’t get enough.”
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July 14th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I drink tap water at home, but bring bottled water when away from home for its convenience. At work, we replaced the Spring Hill-type bottled water bubblers with those that provide fresh filtered and purified water.
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July 14th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I drink filtered tap water because the water in my home tastes terrible (maybe because the pipes are so old). When water, soda, coffee, etc. are provided at meetings, I drink that bottled water & reuse the bottle.
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July 14th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I drink tap water when at home and in the office, drink bottled water when traveling for the convience.
I recycle the plastic water bottles at home by refilling with tap, placing in the fridge and using when I want a cold drink or to carry along with me while out of the house. I found a cooler sleeve that fits the water bottle, the sleeve has a snap handle so easy to attach to my purse or bag to take with me.
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July 14th, 2008 at 10:06 am
I drink filtered water which I prefer because it filters out disinifection by-products and flouride. I don’t like bottled water, especially bottled spring water, because it is draining aquifers dry.
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July 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Most Americans are clueless as to the impacts of bringing consumer goods to their home, including bottled water. Some get it which is nice.
I drink tap water via an activated charcoal filter under my sink both a work and home, and fill a stainless steel water. This great for me and I don’t waste money and trash the environment by transporting water over great distances, which is absurd.
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July 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Anyone drinking water from their tap at home, or from their taps at work - PLEASE (pretty please) get your taps sampled for lead. Rationale here: the cost of a drinking water sample is a lot less expensive than the medical bills for lead poisoning, especially if you have children. Unless you have cheap copays - mine just went up though. The water sampling results you see from your public water supply source DO NOT do any accounting for the piping to/from/in your OWN home or place of business. This lead issue, is of course, an issue for older houses/buildings than new ones (especially if you’ve been there a really long time and haven’t sold/bought the house, the selling/buying process which may have required sampling already, and disclosure about lead) that may have plastic piping of some kind, so if you find out you have metal piping/saudering, please test your water to make sure you’re not getting poisoned. Also, just because your filter TELLS you they filter out flouride, or A - Z chemicals, ASK to see their certification paperwork. If they’re a legitimate company, they will SHOW you this paperwork, and have it on hand to do so. Make sure they’re marketing material matches their own certifications, that’s the bottom line. (And by the way - shower filters are JUNK - not enough surface area to remove ANYTHING for long, despite marketing claims. No time to go into the importance of surface area here, sorry) So anyway if you’re leaching a lot of lead through your taps, you discover, after testing, and don’t want to drink it, what to do, right? A simple carbon block filter may take this out. Wish some water scientists would blog here! The trick (I think) is knowing when to swap out the carbon blocks. Reverse osmosis and distillation will provide a lot more protection from anything under the sun, but this is a lot more expensive and most Americans can’t really afford clean water as it is whether it’s environmental costs/pocketbook costs, otherwise none of us would be here on this webpage writing so passionately as we are finding ourselves doing. We all care about what is happening around us, and to us. That is why we take the minute (or more) to be here. It is a privilege to be here for all of us, because of our freedom of speech. And if we can’t afford clean water can you imagine what they are drinking in other parts of the world, specifically in what we often and nominally call “the third world?” Not to digress. Back to lead, other options - you can also go the route of some extremists I know - replace your pipes. This may cost a bit of money, but at the same time it adds a lot of re-sale value to your home. People, especially parents, are really looking into things like this these days. Some states require disclosures. And this is just the water stuff. There’s also what kind of paint is in your house? What are the air issues? Did you ever have a fuel oil tank in your basement/land, and did it leak? (Big money to fix, to code under most State standards - anyone who’s been there, please groan with me) Water is honestly - just a drop in the bucket. Cell phones? Who knows. I use one. But every time I do, I think of the final scene in the movie, “Thank you for Smoking.” Blows my mind. Totally. There are no simple answers we are not black and white and “life” is not a linear system. Unfortunately, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo daVinci) and the simplest explanation is usually the best one (Occam’s razor). And by the way, I couldn’t agree more - stainless steel water bottles and travel mugs rock! Microbes grow in plastic. They love plastic water bottles especially, not to mention that plastic water bottles tend to leach the hormone-mimicking chemical bisphenol A (BPA), even Nalgene plastic water containers, which has lead a major Canadian retailer to remove Nalgene. If you have to buy bottled (i.e. traveling) because it’s your safest choice - look for the “bottled date” on the label. Usually something like 07142008, followed by an expiration date, something like 07142009. The older the water is, the longer it’s been sitting around, and the more leachate you’ll be drinking, especially if the plastic’s been at room temperature or warmer. Our organs can only detoxify so much, and so much over short courses of time…
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July 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
My water source is a fresh-water well about 75′ deep. It produces crystal clear, sweet and cold water. The only cost involved is that which occurs when the pump runs to bring the water to the household system. This water is also good for plants that we grow, since it is chemical-free.
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July 14th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Wish I had real estate (property) with a 75′ deep, artesian well, far away from any CERCLA and/or Superfund sites! Note to self: Do NOT buy property in Cheshire, CT. Anyone from Chesire, CT reading this? Anyone who doesn’t know about Cheshire, CT, check out http://www.cancerincheshire.com. Alas, I live in the city and I have 2 choices: tap or bottled. Bottled has its problems. So does tap water. It basically “boils” (get it - boils?) down to a big-time SOCIAL JUSTICE issue. If you’re poor and you live in a city, who’s looking out for you and YOUR BABY, to make sure that your water is lead-free, and, SAFE? IF your water’s unsafe, can you even afford bottled water? Sadly most issues come down to babies. Or pets. It’s ok to poison ourselves, but we’re criminal if we poison our babies or our pets. (Inquiring minds are afraid to ask, do houseplants have rights?) And Chesire, CT - I hear ya.
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July 14th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I wish I owned property - but not in Cheshire, CT! I live in the city. I don’t have my own well. So I drink tap or bottled. It basically boils down to a SOCIAL JUSTICE issue. If you live in the city and you are poor, who checks your water (i.e. for lead from pipes) so you and YOUR BABY are safe? If you live in the city, and you are poor, can you afford bottled water? FYI, don’t drink the water in Cheshire, CT. http://www.cancerincheshire.com
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July 14th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
When we depend on large water delivery systems we lose control of water quality. We are also competing for water resources with nature, agriculture, industry, recreation, and any big consumer with big bucks. Now’s the time to get big government and big corporations out of our water business. Local water districts and consumers must face limited water resources and govern water quality and delivery. Nature and our food supply would obviously receive priority. If we managed our local resources, we would be responsible and conscientious about quality and uses. By the way, the byproducts of the petroleum industry not only dump plastics upon our planet, but also all those noxious chemicals and heavy metals that are turning up in our water supply; even as disinfectants!
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July 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
As a human being I am a steward on this beautiful planet. But I cannot do much about the environmental pollution and waste. At least on a personal level I can cut down the use of plastic in my life and the first easy step was to engage with my city’s tap water which I know is safer.
Besides, even if the tap water is less safe I would take it instead of having the environment pay the price.
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July 15th, 2008 at 12:13 am
The only time I drink Bottled Water is, If the water is not safe to drink due to Repairs or a Hurricane. We keep a case of water for just that reason. Both my Husband & I are not big water drinkers, but, we see no other reason to buy Bottled water except for emergencies. Otherwise, we see nothing wrong with our tap water in Mississippi. I have been to some states where their water tastes like Iodine or smelled like rotten eggs, & taste not far off. Naturally some States have quiet alot of Drugs infiltrated into the water system. Nothing is pure today, due to overpopulation.
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July 15th, 2008 at 6:42 am
The reason the southern coastal water tastes “brackish” is due to the tannins and organics in it from the decay of plant matter. Sailors put out to sea with stores of this swamp-source water (in fact there is a river in southeastern VA called the Blackwater) because it did not foul as soon as other water.
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July 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I have been concerned about the environment since my college days (1965-69) in part because I felt that the planet was overpopulated then and in part because I felt the Vietnam was was an ecological as well as political and moral disaster. I could never understand why people just couldn’t bring refillable containers to the store for mayonnaise, yogurt and more. When I visited Europe for the first time in 1976, bottled water was very much in evidence. But, it was probably spring water. Now, most bottled water is tap water. I never had a real bottled water habit and absolutely hated being trapped by vending machines that offered a sole source: water bottled by Coca Cola! I know the pressures these industrial giants are putting on water sources and it is frightening. We need to control births world wide:one pregnancy per woman. We need to do that for a century if humans are to survive. We need to recycle more. We need to return to natural products — like baking soda — for cleaning.
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July 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I hate the taste of tap water–too metallic usually. Instead, if we’re at home, we use Brita water filters…that improves the taste dramatically without having to resort to buying bottled water. Usually we only use bottled water if we’re out and about–hiking or shopping or something….
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July 15th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Ms. Nappi: In my comment July 10, 11:06 pm, I point out the UMDH may get formed in trace amounts from chloramine, and it is a rather potent carcinogen. Perhaps that is why you have had colon problems. Dr. J. Singmaster
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July 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I drink tap water. It is completely safe.
I don’t drink bottled water because :
it’s a waste of money
wastes resources to produce
bottles end up in landfills
I find it absurd that people drink bottled water in Canada where the water is clean and safe when there are people all over the world who have NO CLEAN WATER to drink.
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July 15th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
In Ms. Nappi’s case monochloramine is the irritant. Monochloramine causes exactly these symptoms. “Monochloramine induces acute and protracted colitis in the rat” is a study about this under “research studies and links” at http://www.chloramine.org.
Monochloramine is known to induce inflammation and irritation of the skin and mucous membranes. The cells of the body also produce monochloramine to induce inflammation. So why are we surprised that monochloramine in tap water causes irritation and inflammation of the skin, eyes, and digestive and respiratory tracts?
Until EPA and our health departments provide us with water we can actually use, there is no choice for many people whose health is being compromised on a daily basis by monochloramine. I am one of these people.
The EPA better get appropriate research done since there is none for respiratory, dermal, or digestive effects on humans or animals of monochloramine. And shame on them for putting an untested toxic chemical in our water that we cannot even get out of it through filtration, boiling, distilling or plain old just putting a bowl of it on the counter overnight, like we can with chlorine.
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July 15th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I drink tap water. I keep a pitcher of it in the refrig with a slice of lemon to drink when I’m home. It tastes good, I’m already paying for it, a lot less than bottled water. The bottles are made of oil, use more oil to be transported, and sometimes take peoples’ water away from them to service the more affluent. And the bottles aren’t safe if they get warm and they can’t be recyled so they become landfill.
I try to get organizations to serve pitchers of tap water at events.
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July 16th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Thank you Dr. Singmaster for your comment. I did copy your message so that I could ask someone who is knowledgable about chemicals to learn what UMDH is. I do not know. The SFPUC, S.F. Health Dept. and the EPA refuse to acknowledge that there are many people now having difficulties with our tap water since chloramine was introduced. It is a fact that there are many people across the nation and in other parts of the world reporting
skin, respiratory or digestive tract problems of varying degrees. Some of the skin rashes have been as little as an itch to bleeding sores on the body. My 2 granddaughters had to cease swimming lessons because of the water, though we were not awae of that for 2 years. When we realized it was our tap water that was the
cause of their respiratory problems, I was not happy. They were
8 and 10 years old, in private lessons and had to stop. The oldest was a strong distance swimmer and her teacher said that she had olympic potential. The youngest was more of a free style swimmer & her potential was in synchronized swimming. These girls can no longer do active swimming in our local pools. We take them to an area that still uses chlorine rather than chloramine and
they can switm without the harsh respiratory effects, but it is too far away to continue lessons. The digestive problems do not have the same obivous effects as the skin and respiratory. I mostly wear clothing that covers my belly bloat. That is the only outward sign and one could think I am just carrying extra weight, which strangely, I am not. It actually looks like I am pregnant, which at my age is not possible.
I suggested a website in my earlier postings. That website is full of factual information. You do not indicate what kind of doctor you are, but perhaps it will be informative for you.
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July 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Dear Madison Wisconsin,
All you need to do is carry your EMPTY reusable bottle through security then ask a vendor to fill it for you — I have never been turned down. They usually give me ice as well. Or you can just fill it from the water fountain.
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July 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I personally do not like to waste money on bottled water. The folks that bottle water, especially Coke and Pepsi, are laughing all the way to the bank. I have an activated charcoal filter installed under the sink both at my home and work. And I have a stainless steel water to drink out of. The water tastes great, I don’t waste money, and it definitely lowers my ecological footprint, which is very important to me. Every once in awhile I find myself in a position where I have to buy a bottle of water, but it’s no big deal - you do what you can.
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July 17th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I drink bottled water because by doing so, I am helping children in Ethiopia!!! You know the little everyday good action. Volvic gives through UNICEF 10 liters of clean drinkable water to children in Ethiopia.
If you do not believe me check that out:
http://www.drink1give10.com
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July 18th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I do drink bottled water and both my husband and I work in the tap water industry. We have perfectly fine tap water but I find I tend to drink more water if I can just grab a cold bottle out of the fridge. I tryed to quit last week, but find I just don’t drink enough to keep my system in good working order and am fighting a urinary tract infection. I’m gonna try and again after I get over this, but am not willing to have an ongoing problem.
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July 18th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I agree. In Australia we have the same problems with bottled water.What a waste of resourses as more than half of the plastic bottles are not recycled and end up as land fill.What I can not understand is that people complain about the cost of safe tap water but are prepared to pay more for bottled water.($0.40 / 1000 litres for tap water/$2.00+per litre for bottled water).Cradle Coast Water supplies free drink bottles to schools etc to promote the drinking of tap water instead of bottled water and other drinks.
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July 19th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Attention EPA: so far at least 18 people have written on this blog about problems with chloramine. I too have problems with it–I had severe eczema on most parts of my body, which neither my allergist nor my dermatologist was able to diagnose the cause of. When I stopped using tap water, the rashes cleared up. If anyone who reads these posts has questions about this chemical, please have a look at http://www.chloramine.org. There is lots of information there.
Attention EPA: Are you listening? Attention EPA: Are you listening? Attention EPA: Are you listening?
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July 21st, 2008 at 9:26 pm
TO SAVE THE EARTH - NO PLASTIC BOTTLES TO DISPOSE OF.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
You should start telling everyone the truth about plastics , our water , etc. And if for some reason you don’t know the real truth and only think you do, I would reccomend to start looking for other work please, our public heatlh is suppossed to be your responsibility to a degrre. please wake up!
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July 24th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Why does the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Chlorine Council (WCC) both recommend that the maximum contaminant level
(MCL) should be NO more than 0.5mg/L and the US EPA allows 4.0 mg/L. 8 times higher than the rest of the modernized countries. It is proven that prolonged use of water with high chlorine levels results in various cancers, more especially bladder cancer. Say you DON’T drink the water? 70% of chlorine enters our system through dermal (bathing) and steam inhalation (showering). Wake up America! This is why we lead the world in cancer problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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July 26th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I drink tap! In my town, I find the tap water to be delicious! (I actually prefer its taste to bottled water anyway) Not to mention the economical, enivironmental, and moral (Coca-Cola=bad news) benefits. And health benefits, I think, as well- I am skeptical of the safety of water that has been sitting in a plastic bottle for who knows how long.
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July 26th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I am so glad that most of the previous correspondents say that they can drink their tap water. I am confused though, when they say they filter it and then keep it in the fridge. This tells me that they are not really trusting the tap water to be safe and they are masking bad tastes and odors with the coldness.
Ever since the EPA has mandated lower levels of certain byproducts of chlorine, many of the larger water suppliers across the US have been adding ammonia to the chlorine to form chloramine, which is used as a secondary disinfectant. Chloramine cannot be filtered out by ordinary carbon filters and will destroy RO filters. Why should we have to take on the burden and cost of having to filter poisons out of water that the EPA says is so pure? What happens to all the used filters? Into the landfill, I suspect. Are they being changed often enough to prevent bacterial growth in the filter medium?
I had never had a problem drinking or showering with water straight from the tap until my water provider made the change to chloramine. I immediately experienced several adverse health effects. My mouth became very dry and when I drank more of the water to overcome this, I experienced a pain in my stomach that was so bad I doubled over. I then bought some bottled spring water and had no more of those symptoms. When I went back on tap water the symptoms returned. Over time, I am becoming even more sensitive to chloramine and have developed skin and respiratory problems from showering in it. I now must use bottled spring water for all of my cooking as well as drinking. I cannot drink coffee made with chloraminated water. My mouth goes dry and my stomach begins to hurt very quickly. Sometimes, I can’t even finish the cup before the symptoms start.
I have discovered that I am not the only one having these health problems from chloraminated water. I have learned that there are hundreds of others across the US who are suffering from digestive, skin and respiratory problems when they are exposed to chloraminated water. There is a good website that fully explains the issue. It is http://www.chloramine.org.
Please EPA, get an independent agency to do the complete human health tests (which have never been done) on the effects of chloraminated water before you cause more water supplies to be ruined.
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July 26th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
My family drinks tap water because it is more regulated than bottled water. Bottled water costs more and most people do not recycle the bottles. And why would anyone trust the Coca Cola or Pepsi companies to make refreshing bottled water?
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July 28th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I drink tap water whenever possible (if taste is an issue get a Brita filter). I work in the water industry and if people would put all that money that is wasted on buying $1.50 water per bottle toward our municipal water treatment systems, we would have state-of-art facilities with excellent quality drinking water. Communties protest water rate increases, but probably spend more than the monthly water bill on buying bottled water.
Also, I can’t bear to think about all that wasted plastic from the non-recycled bottles (only 20% are recycled) floating around the ocean killing the marine life. It is very difficult not to buy bottled water as I travel often, so I try to bring a reusable container and fill up instead of buying new.
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July 28th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I prefer to drink tap water because having a new plastic bottle each time is so wasteful. If a person wants to carry water with them, they should purchase a container that can be washed and re-used.
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July 29th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I always drink bottled purely for taste value but have an interesting find. I went to college and got my degree in water quality. During my time I took a class devoted to sampling techniques and laboratory testing. We got to choose our water samples we wished to run and my partner and I thought it would be fun to test the schools tap water vs. my basic bottled water. The tap water did have much higher levels of chlorine after it had been run for awhile…. when we took samples right away we got the water that was sitting in the pipes and the chlorine had evaporated. But when we tested both of the water sources for other parameters like nitrogens (ammonia, nitrates, etc.), forms of phosphorous, and e.coli the bottled tested higher. Yes, even e.coli. This didn’t change my habit of drinking bottled water merely because I cannot get past the taste of chlorine in the tap water but it was an interesting find.
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August 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I am very grateful that we in the US have a safe and reliable water supply. In so many parts of the world, all the water must be carried, and then boiled (using scarce fuel) to be safe for drinking.
I cannot justify having MY water carried across country needlessly.
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August 11th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I drink water from my own countertop filter. Sometimes I’ll have bottled water when it’s provided somewhere, but I’m spoiled because I can taste the chlorine in a lot of bottled water, something I don’t taste from my own tap because of the filter.
I spent about $300 for a good filter and it has saved me a few thousand dollars in drinking water. I get fresh tasting water, and I do my part to help the environment!
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August 20th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Bottled water is convenient for commuting in a car, as well as for emergency home storage. I’m in Los Angeles, so I appreciate these aspects of bottled water. At home, though, I use tap water. The quality is better than stated in the paranoid media hype. If the quality of tap water should become substandard, I am ready to join with my fellow Californians to force changes if necessary.
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August 21st, 2008 at 10:15 am
I simply feel better drinking tap water. My township (Abington, PA) does a thorough job of maintaining water quality, is quite transparent in its operations, is pretty responsive to citizen input, so I know the water is safe. Taste is handled with a Brita filter — then we put the tap water in the fridge and take it out in re-usable containers. I’d rather take the extra steps than put myself at risk with the pthalates in the plastic bottles, rather than be part of generating millions of non-bio-degradable containers, most of which will never be recycled.
I see no reason to spend precious energy - and more oil! - transporting said containers full of water when safe water is right here, and already paid for through my taxes. I also know that much of the water sold in bottles is simply tap water anyway, or is competing with municipal water pulled from the same aquifers, or it’s distilled water, which while “pure” is less healthy than water with trace elements in it. Bottled water looks like a lose-lose situation to me, and I just don’t do it.
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August 25th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
it’s true that bottled waters are really convenient to use. but what do we think of, the temporary comfort that it provides or the lifetime ease of not using them for the safety of the environment?
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August 31st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Most bottled water have a chemical taste. Sparklets, Arrowhead, Dasani to name a few. Bottled water is like fast food in a way. The true cost far exceeds its value or any benefit. Before the advent of plastic bottles somehow we managed with thermos bottles, which required thought and participation. I think plastic bottles have been a large component in the unconscious way people sleepwalk through parts of their lives. If it’s made of plastic, one can be less focused on the task at hand. Brita Filters work just fine, save money, no danger from pthalates in plastic bottles, less “eternity in a landfill”. Bottled water has become a pariah in many ways. Municipalities are stepping up and doing more to insure that tap water is safe, clean, healthy and actually water.
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September 13th, 2008 at 3:47 am
why do We drink bottled water or tap water?
it is a very interesting question because i never really understood what drives me to get to the market and buy a pack of “pure water”and a few days later drink tap water anywhere on campus.
I’m left with that “pure” image of bottled water.To me they are healthier ,it’s like comparing normal distillled water to Evian (source water).It is more of a conception American have of bottled water .
Tap water is actually the best to drink according to scientists these days because bottled water can have emballage effect on consumers .Let’s all stick to our tap water.We have to think about it this way: Would the state regulators let you consume unsafe products.? It is their responsability to provide clean and healthy water to communities so far tap water won’t and can’t kill you .unless you know somebody it has harmed before. Buying those bottles water is simply worsen our waste control problems.
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September 16th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I try to drink water that has been filtered or comes from a bottle.
In my area, a report on the local news said that of the water tested in the area only 27% was not contaminated by harmful pollutants. NOw I didn’t do the study or write the news report so I don’t know all the details, but I am concerned. I know of dumping of poisonous paint in the ground near the reservoir in the town in which I grew up. The town I live in now you can find mercury in the ground just by digging a little. I know that most of the streams and lakes you can actually see the oil and/or pollution. My state is industrialized. I understand this industrialization has helped us in many ways to prosper, but what do you do? Who actually knows if the filters get rid of the chemicals? Who knows if the bottled water isn’t contaminated? (The news also reported that plastics (#3, 6 and 7) are also possibly harmful.) You don’t.
Perhaps we can avoid one contaminate, just to realize they are everywhere, the air is contaminated with Carbon Monoxide from our cars. It is all so overwhelming! …and depressing.
What are we doing to ourselves?
What can we do to save ourselves?
…???
Or should we just drink it in and hope?
Maybe it makes a stronger in the future?
Maybe not?
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September 16th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
By the way, I wouldn’t rely on the fact that state, or any other governmental body, is actually watching out for you. They are people, just like you and me. They aren’t always aware of what is right or of what is happening is harmful. Honestly, sometimes they just don’t even care. Just think about those who you run into in your daily lives. I ‘ve been surprised to discover the perspective of people sometimes. Surprised how drastically different it can be. Surprised that someone cannot/does not see something that seems obvious to me. Over the years you learn this, you accept it, but you should never underestimate it.
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September 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I have no preferance I either drink tap water or bottled water. It all depends on where I am. I mean when you think about it, they’re both the same. I mean hello do you really think that the government is going to waste billions of dollars to fully clean water? Either way were not getting diaharria. We should all be thankful that we at least have clean water! What about all of those people out there that have to drink contaminated water due to the fact that they do not have sewer systems! Be happy that we have water avilable to us, unlike other countries!
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October 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
i drink both, i do this becasue bottled water is expensive and can do bad things to the environment. I drink bottled water when on the go or not able to get tap water. Tap water i drink when i am at home and in places that i know that the tap water is not contaminated or anything.
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October 9th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Now we do have a reason not to drink tap water…..thinking that 60% of us water system contain fluoride is more than a fear…fluoridation of water is now evrywhere …what can we do about that? …..I am so concerned about the next generation that will have to face an habituation to such a revealed toxic chemical.
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November 1st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Tap water for me. it tastes fresh in CA
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