Your Water Bottle Is One-Quarter Oil

Turn on the tap???? The municipal drinking water in Washington DC (where I live) has been contaminated with high levels of lead and other "heavy metals". A fact which has persisted for over ten years, hidden from the public and ultimately denied by city officials until the story broke mainstream news in 2004. Most of us who drink bottled water in DC do so mainly out of concern for our health. In addition, the federal and local governments have yet to take the discovery of sedatives found in drinking water around the country seriously. What is being done to solve this public safety crisis. The testing standards that are applied to bottled water should be applied to our tap water and monitored by multiple independent testing agencies. Only then will I regain trust and willingly drink tap water. http://cenblog.org/2009/01/27/lead-in-dc’s-drinking-water/

A large percentage of bottled water companies get their water from the exact same source as the municipal supply. Some even get the water FROM the municipal supply itself. Many bottled water samples have tested and found to have more contaminated than many municipal supplies. If you are worried about the health effects, just use a home filter. They are cheaper, more effective, and use less energy.

Now imagine if this energy-cost analysis was applied to all of our consumption habits! Bottled teas, sodas, personal hygiene products, milk, juices, detergents, liquid soaps, cleaning products, the stuff that goes into making the cleaning products, cooking oils, coffee, medicines, blah blah blah. And its NOTHING compared to the energy we consume to drive ourselves from point A to point B! Okra, thanks for the info. I'll be moving up to DC in a couple of months. Guess I'll be upgrading my brita pitcher to prevent lead poisoning.

"The testing standards that are applied to bottled water should be applied to our tap water and monitored by multiple independent testing agencies. Only then will I regain trust and willingly drink tap water." Bottled water is regulated by FDA. Municipal drinking water is regulated by EPA. FDA is supposed to make sure bottled water meets the EPA quality standards set for municipal water. If you are going to claim that bottled water is significantly higher quality or more highly regulated, I would love to see the basis for this. Also, on the subject of lead... the samples that show lead above action levels are for first flush samples, and represent the lead that leaches from your home plumbing after sitting at least 8 hours. Just let the faucet run for a minute in the morning to clear the water that sat in your plumbing overnight. Don't make your coffee with the first flush of water from the system! Problem solved. If you are paying $1/gallon for bottled water (low estimate) and say $5/1,000 gallons for tap water, bottled water is 200 times more expensive. Is it 200 times better for you? If you think so, please post the constituents you are concerned about in your tap water, plus lab results for your tap water and preferred bottled water, plus credible dose/response data for those constituents. I would be amazed if anyone here can justify buying bottled water. Bottled water is mostly a tribute to marketing genius...sorta like antimicrobial soap (another big joke...which, by the way, ends up in all of our drinking water supplies). Most people drink it because they don't like the chlorine taste in tap water. Just add a little lemon juice to your glass of water to get rid of the chlorine, and you have saved a fortune (ascorbic acid is a reducing agent that reacts with chlorine, which is an oxidizer). Not sure how anyone can claim that tap water doesn't contain electrolytes. You would have to run it through RO to remove salts (electrolytes). If you are buying bottled water to get the electrolytes you need to survive, how did previous generations of your family manage to live without bottled water? As the recession deepens and we have to cut back on the things that keep us alive, like cable tv and bottled water, how many people think we will drop dead within a month?

I wish our tap was drinkable. Here in Corpus Christi, TX to cook with tap you first have to filter and boil the water before use. Our city water treatment is constantly in trouble and there are constant health advisories to boil our water. I get my water delivered once a month in those 5 gallon jugs to cook and drink. I just don't see any better way to have clean water in a city like mine.

I drink tap water, but not that much. I don't trust the tap water. If the tap water is contaminated, the government would never say anything. They would keep it low. If the news comes out and someone sues, the government can pay the settlement. But the damage is already done. Steven

You got your point here, thanks for sharing it would us, it's an eye opening point, at least for me it was. I've been considering installing a water filter for a while now but I never was really sure if this is the best thing to do. Whit your recommendation it will be easier for me to make a good decision. I just home my local Atlanta plumbing is available to help me right away. As for bottled water, every morning I have to throw several bottles in the plastic garbige tank, it's a waste that shouldn't be there, so yes, water filter it is.