Bottled Water: Sure, if you’re an Idiot
By: Keith
There are two primary kinds of bottled water that we drink in this country (I’m not going to talk about mineral water and sparkling water). There is tap water that goes through reverse osmosis or some other process to purify it, and there is spring water which comes from a spring and isn’t purified (because it doesn’t need to be). Purified water is good if you live in Bangladesh and will die if you drink from your local supply, but in the United States it’s totally pointless. Spring water is good and it tastes good – but it’s still a waste. Public water is usually safe to drink, but it too has had problems in some parts of the country (reference the caseof the flammable tap water in Colorado). My kids and I drink filtered water from the tap. I haven’t died yet, and I’ve been on the same filter for a month now. Buying bottled water wasteful. People might think they’re being healthy, but what they’re really doing is hastening the demise of our ecosystem (and this is coming from a conservative guy who isn’t particularly environmentally minded); the waste is incredible.
Purified Water:
Honestly, the plastic usage of these bottles goes beyond words. According to Food and Water Watch (.org) “It takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water bottles for Americans every year.” That’s a lot of damn oil. And what do we get in return? Tap water is what we get — the Saudis get whatever the cost of a barrel of oil is times 47 million. Oh, and our environment gets hammered in the process. That doesn’t sound like such a good deal to me.
“ … if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.” – Aug 2007 NY Times article.
Is purified bottled water healthy? Maybe it is, but we can’t be sure. There are no FDA regulations on bottled water that is bottled and sold within the same state; only if the bottle travels over state lines is it regulated by the FDA (which is another issue because it’s the EPA that really should be monitoring it). 70% of all the purified water consumed in this country falls into the unregulated category. Some guy could literally be standing outside a warehouse with a hose filling up some of these bottles. You’d never know.
Spring Water
Of all the bottled water out there spring water is the best. The problem, again, is that it can’t be trusted because there is little regulation. I used to work for Ozarka (a Perrier brand of water from Texas). They got their water from two primary springs (which I’ve since forgotten the names of) and they drew it directly from the earth before the water ever got a chance to reach the air (they used a bore hole technique for this). Ozarka spring water was legitimate and it tasted good. The same cannot be said for many other brands. And the cost? Even if the spring water we drink is healthy it is not worth the expense. Furthermore, spring water all tastes different because taste is determined by the spring from which it flows (minerals in the earth are not concentrated evenly by geography). So you might like one bottle of Ozarka water while thinking another tastes somehow wrong. And, unless you memorize all the names of the springs, you won’t know which is which. To make matters worse, sometimes the springs are mixed as they arrive at the bottle plant. So the taste can be really wacky.
The Solution: Filtered Tap Water
Brita and Pur water pitchers filter chlorine, lead, mercury and other bad sorts of stuff from tap water. Chlorine is the thing that really gets me. Mercury and lead can’t be detected, and I wouldn’t know if I was drinking it until I arrived at the hospital with horrible health issues. While most public water is perfectly safe, there are the occasional times when it fails a government test (surprise surprise). As a safety net I simply fill up a Brita pitcher every morning and use that throughout the day. It provides a little peace of mind and superior tasting water (I’m sensitive to chlorine). When I’ve been very lazy, and I’ve forgotten to fill the pitcher, I am not afraid to drink my water from the tap. I simply use the filter as a luxury and, like I said, some peace of mind.
I take my health seriously. I also take my wallet seriously. The combination of those two concerns has led me to evaluate the merits of bottled water. The facts speak for themselves. Bottled water, whether purified tap water or spring water, is a waste of money and a waste for the environment. The solution is to either drink unfiltered tap water (unless you live in Mexico) or to go buy yourself some sort of filter. The last thing we need to be doing is being a bunch of uninformed dupes to the bottled water industry. They aren’t necessarily bad people, they just want your money; if you give it to them then that’s your problem, not theirs.
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Very informative! Tap water has fluoride which is a toxic byproduct of aluminum used by the Russians for mind control.
It used to be that we walked for miles with no fluids but nowadays everyone is carrying a water bottle from the parking lot into the nail salon. Geez, people are sure a bunch of wussies now.
You know me…..we’re a filter a family. More eco-friendly as well.
For those who do drink bottled…..please recycle!!!!!
Filtered all the way.
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I just love Penn and Teller! Never saw that one! We do filtered at home, but I always keep some bottles of water in my trunk for emergencies. And when my kids are sick, I make them drink electrolyte water instead of Gatorade. Too much sugar. And I recycle my bottles, always. The main thing that got me off bottled water was the whole arsenic thing. That freaked me out. Not sure if my filter gets that out or not. Geez arsenic is showing up in all sorts of things. Just found out it’s in most chicken as well!
I’m with Mitzi – we do a bit of both (and reuse the plastic bottles as well, when we use them).
Love the new look, by the way!
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Everyone here is bringing up really good points. I’ve heard of the flouride cotroversy for a while but I don’t really know what it’s about. It was not added to our water in Texas because it is naturally occurring there. It is also not added to water in Boulder because the hippies won’t have any of it. I need to look into it a little.
Mitzi, you bring up a great point about having some bottled water on hand for an emergency. Excellent to point that out because I overlooked that. Bottled water does not go bad quickly; it can be kept for a long time.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
for everyone keeping water in their trunks.. I don’t know the temperature it needs to get up to to have this problem, but I have read in the past that you should not keep them in your car when it is at all warm out because at a certain temperature the chemicals in the plastic leach into the water. Keith, awesome article! Love the info and Penn and Teller are genius! I am lauging my ass off!
You know what EVIAN is spelled backwards right?
NAIVE.
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We have a well and the water from our well has high sulphur and iron content. Although I presume it is healthy, the taste is gross. Since we have a well, we don’t have a water bill. We buy water from the Culligan machine at Wal Mart. I buy about 40 gallons a month at .37 a gallon. I don’t think it is such a bad trade off since I don’t have a water bill. I hate regular bottled water because I can taste the plastic in it.
As someone who is extremely sensitive to chlorine, I was always curious about the asterisk after “removes chlorine” on the Brita filters. It leads to a disclaimer “taste and odor only”. I notice a big quality difference between spring water and Brita water, mostly due to this chlorine sensitivity.
Also, we’re not using the same oil for bottles as we use for gasoline. Plastics are made out of other grades of oil that we have to do something with after we’ve separated out all of the higher quality components.
Thanks, wag, for the comment. Plastic for bottles is a petroleum product. It all get’s processed differently but it all comes from the same place — the earth. And, actually gasoline get’s massively wasted in the transport of all those bottles and in the operation of the bottling facilities. Even our beef is dependent on oil these days for that very same reason.
Oh, I’m sorry wag, I meant to comment on the chlorine also. I never noticed that the Brita filters said “odor and taste only”. That’s interesting to know. And, you’re right also about the spring water. If you find a spring that really suites you then it’s top notch water — can’ be beat. I also neglected to mention that some hot water pots remove chlorine from water (actually remove it). I have a zojirushi machine that does just that. Every few days I have to go and clean the inside of all the powdered chlorine that the machine has extracted. Still, that helps a lot too. Sorry, I got wrapped up in the petroleum thing there for a sec
Thanks Keith. Zojirushi? I don’t usually play Pokemon but this sounds interesting.
I use an under-the-sink RO filter, but it doesn’t do me much good at the gym or public places…and most of them come with the same naughty little asterisk, as well. I’m just waiting for the US to catch up with France and start using ozone instead of chlorine.
I suppose locally-filtered water in a glass bottle would be best.
I know this in my head……and we have a PUR pitcher and a Restore filtration system….but for some reason pregnancy has thrown my taste buds off and I can taste the metals or something in our water….so while I ditched bottled water a long time ago….for some reason when I got pregnant I went back….and I feel guilty wasting all of those bottles and money and not even being certain I’m doing the best thing………This was a great article…..