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?
You may also like:
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- Do YOU Enjoy Drinking Bottled Water That Supports A Dictatorship?
- Greenwash Of The Week: Earth Day & Coca-Cola.
- Greenwash Of The Week: Fiji Bottled Water.
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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.
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.
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.
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
You should write to your local water district people and ask them to see what they say…
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?
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.
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!
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.
So glad to hear that Ashley!
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!
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.
I live in NM, and my well water is perfectly fine, safe, and tested every year.
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…’
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
Bottled water is a scam from the food industry. They got us hooked to this habit, and now people think that bottled water is better than tap water.
I think the 4th point is the most important for the average American – there is a market-based incentive for tap water. A simple filtration system can save folks hundreds of dollars. Unfortunate as it may be to us on the left, it’s likely to be the market that saves the environment. Take a look at how access to solar power has increased as production costs have been slashed and you can see Americans have no problem doing what’s right for the environment if there’s a financial incentive.
I think we can convince most people to quit bottled water if they open their minds to the realities of buying them. I’ve always had a Brita Pitcher and have been using a Klean Kanteen. It’s just as convenient as bottled water but it tastes better and it’s cheaper!
Your water may contain disinfectant byproducts. The most common disinfectant byproducts formed when chlorine is used are:
•trihalomethanes (THMs)
•haloacetic acids (HAAs)
Don’t forget your exposure from showering, too.
We drank bottled water for years. About 2 years ago that came to a stop when we were working hard to be greener. Our local area water is not filtered very well and smells horrible so we do not drink it. I buy water and we re-use our bottle containers.
Great post. The best solution to avoid needless waste is either a tap filtration system or a filtered water pitcher. Bottld water is a senseless waste in so many ways. Thanks for reinforcing what most people should already be aware of.
“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.” What a powerful example of how our smallest actions truly can have an outsize impact on others. Although the simple act of tossing that one little water bottle into the trash can instead of the recycling can seem inconsequential, knowing that around the world, countless people are doing the very same thing at the very same time is sobering. And with the tiny adjustment of using the recycling bin, we can really make a world of difference.
Great Post, I live in CA and I remember when I was young no one ever drank out of a water bottle. We would just drink water from the faucet or if we were all outside out of the water hose. I just bought a Water Filtration for my home so we never buy bottled water.
Gene
Voyage Home Loans
Excellent article,
Here in Australia we have a similar situation however recently the town of Bundanoon, in the NSW southern highlands, passed a resolution banning the sale of bottled water in the town – believed to be the first time such a ban had occurred in the world.
I did some research on the issue for an article and found that many experts were saying the move had benefitted the town in many ways, both economically and environmentally.
Here in Portland, OR plastic water bottles have a 5 cent deposit, so I would assume that the majority are being returned/recycled. There are hundreds of people rooting through dumpsters daily who are very happy to keep them out of the landfill for us. I suppose we are the exception in that regard. I would hardly consider the tap water in most places to be pure or safe (or palatable), and most home filters DO NOT remove fluoride, possibly one of the most harmful chemicals commonly consumed by nearly everyone, and again, Portland is exceptional in that our water is not fluoridated. Fluoride has been linked to thyroid disease, which is now nearly as common as menopause in middle aged women. The main point I wish to make is that most of your 12 reasons can also be applied to sodas, beer, “energy drinks”, and countless other types of contaminated swill that most chug daily without a thought to the consequences of their actions. Why single out bottled water when countless other drinks share many of the same “faults”? For me there is nothing other than pure spring water (with all it’s natural minerals intact and in balance) that meets my rather high standard for personal consumption, and whether I go to the spring myself or have it trucked hundreds of miles I will rarely drink anything else. If you wish to make people feel guilty for drinking bottled water while ignoring the countless other packaged “foods” and drinks which should carry the same stigma (it’s still water even when you add sugar and color) then that is your agenda and you are welcome to it, but blithely ignoring the fluoride issue does a disservice to those who would believe that home filtered tap water is safe and healthy. I won’t even start on the issue of residual pharmaceutical drugs of many kinds which have been found in water throughout the country. Actually you don’t want to get me started at all, because I have just put a toe in and the water’s not fine. Grade E for effort.
BTW, your reason #3
“By drinking tap water, you can avoid the fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, and other chemicals that studies have found in bottled water.”
is very misleading.