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Originally Posted by Oldfart
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?
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not that anyone will care
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.