water, water everywhere
 

but it's not the cure-all we've been led to believe

there's a line in the article that ponders where the myth originated. i have a crazy, far-out idea - the bottled water industry. :rolleyes2

bottom line - drink when you're thirsty. damn that's genius.

The scary part is that so many people don't trust their tapwater. Is this a failing of the utility provider or too many episodes of X-files?

I drink a lot of water and use a Brita pitcher because I don't like the taste of my tap water unless it has been filtered. Of course that could be my taste buds, which have adjusted to the taste of filtered water. I know that most days I don't get in 8 glasses of pure water because I drink too much coffee and tea. All I do know is that I pee a lot!!! :rolleyes2

Bottled water. :D .....PTB's fondest dream. :roflmao:

SUGGESTION:Get checked for Diabetes!I was working on a roofing crew.I thought that I was just drinking ALOT of fluids & peeing ALOT because it was so HOT on the roofs.My DR found that I had Diabetes. Irish

I hate water mostly....................I like it ice cold in summer thou.

not that anyone will care :o but i actually do have an opinion on bottled water use. but in developed countries, where municipal water is safe, i think it's mostly a result of too much money and too little knowledge.

in the US, regulations on tap water quality and monitoring are much more stringent than those for bottled water. and ironically, about 25% of bottled water sold is merely reprocessed tap water anyway - aquafina (pepsi) and dasani (coke) are reprocessed from municipal water systems. the other 75% comes from aquifers, lakes, springs, etc.

about a quarter of bottled brands that have been tested contain chemical contaminants at levels above the more strict state health and EPA limits compared to municipal sources. maybe that's because plastic containers leak chemicals into the water from the bottle after time spent on shelves. water pipes can as well, that's mostly minerals though, not chemicals - but running your tap for a few short moments before use takes care of that.

water bottlers, unlike municipal utilities, are not required to test for the presence of cryptosporidium, giardia, e. coli, and lots of other nasty little organics. of course the processes needed to bottle the water will usually get rid of most of those nasties but so do municipalities get rid of them. they add chlorine, which is way more effective, but it can have an odor and/or taste which turns people off, even though at the levels used it’s perfectly safe. on the other hand, bottlers add sulfites to their water the “enhance the taste” (mask the taste more like it) but are not required to say so, so peeps with sulfite allergies may suffer for it by having asthma symptoms or headaches.

if that’s not enough to get you to cut back on your bottled water consumption and stop paying the bottled water industry your hard earned cash, consider this…

there is no proof that bottled water is any safer than municipal water. in fact, it has (at the very least) the same failings as municipal systems. but would you ever filter your bottled water? of course not, you have been led to believe that the bottlers do it for you, even if that isn’t exactly the case. but you can filter your own well or municipal water and that, without a doubt, is the best bet for your pocket and the planet.

after all is said and done, it takes about 3-5 liters of water to make a one liter bottle of water. what a waste. and that’s for domestic water. if the water is from overseas, the imbalance is even greater, more like 6 or 7 times. the transportation of bottled water also pollutes. the pollution from municipal water treatment facilities is already being created whether you use the water or not. the water is already in the pipes, so using it does not increase the cumulative pollutive effects even a minor degree. however pumping, bottling, transporting and reclaiming the plastic from one bottle of water pollutes way more than the equivalent amount of water in natural resources.

only 20% or so of water bottles are actually recycled, the other 80% end up in land fills. to put a rough number on that, about 29 billion plastic water bottles are produced for the US alone. making those bottles requires the equivalent of 17 million barrels of crude oil. the cost of recycling a bottle versus making a new one does vary depending where the bottle is dropped off, how close recycling plants are to drop-off centers, what dumping tariffs are, and what the price of oil happens to be. sometimes, it’s actually more expensive to recycle a plastic bottle than it is to make a new one. sometimes, not. either way about a half billion dollars worth of recyclable plastic water bottles end up in landfills. another waste.

water bottlers also affect ground water levels if they bottle more water than is naturally replenished, and they do. they tap springs and aquifers and lakes and streams at a faster rate than can be naturally replenished and that affects the sediment in nearby streams which messes with the food supply for wildlife and the stability of plant life. if it’s near the ocean, it totally messes up the salt water table that provides a natural barrier between fresh water in aquifers, springs, etc - again affecting the natural balance of things. they also impact the water available to municipalities and well users, effectively stealing water from those downstream. this isn't to say that municipal utilities don't affect these things as well, but i personally would rather that than private companies messing with our water rights.

use a filtration system like tess (way to go girl!) and reusable containers. or if you must have bottled, consider using services that provide you with large, refillable bottles like the ones for water coolers.

I had heard about this issue a couple of weeks ago when the latest follow-up report was released. Had been wondering if I wanted to delve further into this issue.

But whydhy, you've already delved further into it than I was going to go. Thanks you; you've done a whole lot of the work necessary for a thorough examination.

Yes, I'm still a fence-sitter.

Price of a gallon of gas US$3.29
Price of a gallon of bottled water US$12.00(at $1.50 per .5 liter bottle)

plus the bottle is made from oil.

Sorry to hear about your diabetes, Irish. I have always drank an enormous amount of fluids and I have always peed an enormous amount. I've also been tested for diabetes since it runs in my family and I'm very healthy. :)


Great work wyndhy on all the research you have done. I do take a reusable water bottle with me to the gym every day. I have heard too much against reusing plastic bottles that are meant to be disposable.

Amazing the amount of money that is spent on water. I see it every day at my job where some of the bottles of water we sell go for almost $3 a bottle. They could get a cup of water out of our soda machine, which is cold and tasty for .27 cents.

I buy bottles of water and then I refill them from the tap several times before I toss them and repeat.

i think that a lot of the time, people just don't realize the impact it has on the environment. they figure that it's just water after all, and whether it comes from pepsi-co or my tap, it's all the same in the end, even safer, and that the PET plastic is recyclable so it's no big deal. but the impacts are actually huge. and it's so silly that we fall for it and allow this ridiculous form of pollution to continue because it's so fixable when you give it a moment's thought. i recently read that certain government offices in the UK are getting rid of their bottled water, as are government offices in california. so smart.

i'm guilty of buying the occasional bottle for a road trip when i forget to fill up a bottle from home. and i'm not saying that you should trust that anything that comes out of your tap is 100% safe. that's absurd. i don't usually drink water straight from the tap, and i certainly don't give it to my kids to drink or make bottles for the baby with it. just be safe and filter it. we have well water here (the well is way deep and chances of contamination are slim) but we still filter, nevertheless - for sediment in the basement and, other, nastier stuff in the one in the fridge.

as you can see it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. :o

When we had bottled water at my place of work I looked one day at where the water came from, the 2 and a half gallon jug said filtered Peoria city tap water and the 5 gallon jug said filtered Chicago city tap water. Both citys tap water is river water.

I'd gladly drink the tap water if my water didn't stink... yes indeed I've got horrible tap water. I also seem to have horrible water coming out of the filtered spigot on my refrigerator.

I often think that I'm bathing in sewer water that's how bad it smells, I won't dare taste it.

Appealing thoughts, eh?

yuck^^^^

bad water is the worst