12 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water.
It is a common misconception for many people that bottled water is safer than tap, plastic bottles get recycled, and no harm is being done to the environment in the bottling process. Unfortunately, that could not be further from the truth! So in case you either needed more reasons to stop drinking bottled water, or a few extra talking points when discussing with your friends, I have assembled 12 solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit:
- American tap water is among the safest in the world.
- As much as 40% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water anyway. Be sure to check the label and look for “from a municipal source” or “community water system”, which just means it is tap water.
- By drinking tap water, you can avoid the fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, and other chemicals that studies have found in bottled water.
- Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water. If the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
- 88% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States are not recycled. The Container Recycling Institute says that plastic water bottles are disposed of (not recycled) at the rate of 30 million a day.
- Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water if left in the sun, heated up, or reused several times.
- Production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet our demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil (not including transportation costs). That equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles in the U.S. each year. Around the world, bottling water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic…each year.
- Bottled water companies mislead communities into giving away their public water in exchange for dangerous jobs.
- It can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself.
- On a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.
- The EPA sets much more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA does for the bottled stuff.
- One out of 6 people in the world does not have safe drinking water, and about 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from bad water…that we know of. This while Americans spend about $16 billion a year on bottled water.
Have you kicked the bottled water habit? We finally did a few years ago, when we started using reusable bottles and filtered tap water from our house. So what do you think? Think we can encourage more people to get rid of their bottled water?
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Comment by Em. on 29 December 2008:
While I totally agree with your post, and fully encourage everyone (!!) to stop the bottled water habit, I still think we have to remember that the disinfectant/hormone/bacteria/fertilizer problem is also seen in community water resources that tap waters are drawn from.
I still think filtered tap water is the better option, though.
Comment by TStrump on 14 January 2009:
Great post!
I actually went and bought a stainless steel water container and no longer drink from plastic bottles.
It’s a waste plus I don’t like the taste of plastic.
Comment by Michelle on 14 January 2009:
Great article, I wish everyone would really take a look at what bottled water really is and wise up. You can get much better quality water by making it yourself, and its much cheaper and more convenient.
Comment by Daniel Stein on 14 January 2009:
I have a problem with my tap water: the Champlain Water District (which serves my town, Essex Junction, VT, and many others) uses chlor-amines (chlorinated ammonia) as a disinfectant, and we all get to be unpaid, unconsenting “guinea pigs”. For drinking water, I use filtered Burlington, VT (chlorine instead) tap water, free — courtesy of Burlington’s City Market (a co-op I am a member of). I make a point of combining errands, so don’t use gasoline just to go get water, but it’s still rather less convenient than simply buying spring water at the grocery store when I’m there.
There are ways to remove chlor-amines, including activated charcoal filters (which then have to be monitored to determine when to replace), or adding chemicals such as vitamine C (ascorbic acid) and allowing time to react. Chlor-amines do NOT evaporate the way chlorine does, and are small enough molecules to pass reverse-osmosis filters. For use in an aquarium, or for kidney dialysis, chlor-amines MUST be removed, and the toxic effects extend to accidental/intentional release into waterways. What a pain!!! Whose “bright idea” was this?
— Daniel Stein
Comment by David on 14 January 2009:
You should write to your local water district people and ask them to see what they say…
Comment by Michelle on 15 January 2009:
For me buying water is out of the question - I’d rather filter it but what would be a good filter? Another problem w/that is that their dispensers are made of plastic…
What is recommended?
Comment by David on 15 January 2009:
Michelle - While we still have a PUR faucet filter here at home, we will be switching to a Brita one shortly as they will start taking back the used filters. I like the faucet ones better than the pitcher ones, as I find the water tastes like plastic in them.
Comment by Jeff Anderson on 15 January 2009:
Excellent post. I champion tap water all the time, citing this project from a classmate of mine: http://web.me.com/apmeislin/Cl.....ction.html
I will now also cite this article. Keep up the great work!
Comment by Ashley Smolnik on 15 January 2009:
I just stumbled upon this website. I’m making it a favorite. I’m 19 and I became health conscious a couple years ago when I went to a Whole Foods for the first time. I live in a small town where we don’t have health food stores. We didn’t even have organic food available in stores. Since then we’ve got a health food section in our Hyvee. And there’s a couple small health food stores downtown. But other than that the town hasn’t really caught on yet. Anyways I’ve been on the fence for a while about getting a water filter. I’m going to do this asap.
Comment by David on 16 January 2009:
So glad to hear that Ashley!
Comment by Sara*MamaGoesGreen* on 18 January 2009:
Great post! Stainless steel is definately the way to go. Of course we love Earthlust bottles, and are proud to carry them on our site! Buying a reusable bottle instead of disposable bottles is not only green, but frugal and sustainable. Stainless steel can be 100% recycled, and will serve you for a long time before you need another!
Comment by miles mathis on 12 February 2009:
While I agree about lowering garbage levels, especially plastic, what writers of articles like this don’t take into consideration is the many places in the US where the tap water is NOT safe. Here in New Mexico, municipal supplies (and private wells) often have high levels of arsenic and fluoride, which cannot be filtered cheaply or easily at the faucet head. RO and other deionization is expensive and gives you health problems anyway (unless you replace the good minerals with a perfect vitamin list). There is no easy answer to this question, but scolding people indiscriminately is definitely not the solution. The EPA needs stricter standards, especially for fluoride and arsenic (as the NRDC admits), and municipal water districts needs to filter them. But until they do, I am going to avoid my tap water. Before you hug your tap water, I suggest you find a copy of the water analysis and study it. You should be able to find a copy online, with some digging.
Comment by david on 12 February 2009:
I live in NM, and my well water is perfectly fine, safe, and tested every year.
Comment by Martin on 23 February 2009:
This reason –
“Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water if left in the sun, heated up, or reused several times.”
I was looking for hard scientific data about this today and I came up almost empty as far as the common PET water bottle goes. Can you point me to some science. I know intuitively that if the water tastes plastic, then there are petrochemicals in it but I can’t find a report saying ‘Don’t heat PET water bottles…’
Comment by david on 24 February 2009:
There is plenty of research on the internet, but thought you might like this one to start with: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17707454