bottled vs. tap water
Posted by ShaolinBunny on Jun 24, 2007 · Member since Jan 2007 · 793 posts
San Francisco's mayor is issuing an order banning city departments from buying bottled water, even for a water cooler (to cut down on the number plastic water bottles in landfills):
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/24/bottled.water.ap/index.html
I was just curious how you guys feel about bottled water vs. tap water. Any thoughts? What do you drink?
I can't afford bottled water unless and until they start the 13hr a day water cutoff again (please God, never again). In those days our water came in brown, yellow or green depending on the day, and smells were many and varied. I thought I was getting a stress ulcer (that was about time I came out of the cult I was raised in) but the Dr told me to buy bottled water. Shazam!! But fortunately this yr the water is good so I can't justify the expense.
it makes sense, i mean if the water is clean, then why have all those water bottles in landfills when you can just drink water from the faucet?
I drink a combination of both. Well maybe I should say that I drink tap water when I'm at my mother's because it's well water and filtered but if I'm at my house I drink bottled (bought in gallon jugs) because it's on city "delivered", tastes disgusting and occasionaly comes in light brown. :o
I actually did a research on bottled water for school...and some companies don't really live up to there advertisment....I'm not too fond of bottled water to be honest..I stick with distilled water...that whole big thing about fluoride in the water being good for you is a load of you-know-what- to me, anyway...
i drink tap at home and bottled at work. sometimes i refill my bottles with tap water because i hate it when bottled water tastes like the bottle. I had well water growing up and i hate that plastic-y taste of certain bottled brands.
I use the bottle bottled water comes in as a drinking bottle (now I've said/read/written 'bottle' so many times it doesn't seem like a real word). So I drink the water from the bottle, then fill it up from the tap until the bottle starts to look a bit past-it. Then I buy another one. One bottle lasts me two or three weeks. And I often keep them around the house to water the plants with. I also put them out with the recycling, not the trash.
We use a filter. Bottled water gets spendy, and the plastic bottles do fill up the bin faster and unescessarily. And I like my water to be stored in the fridge. Tap water isn't cold enough and has a taste. Does anyone know what's in the Brita/Pur water filters, anyway?
I don't drink bottle water. I think it is too expensive. when I live in Portland OR, I have no problem to drink tap water because water quality is good. I only run it through Brita to cut the chlorine taste. When I go out I always have a 32 oz water bottle to fill with water from home with me. It all depends on where you live I think. I moved to NV is a different story. There were too many mine here, and I can't trust the tap water is safe. We can afford to put in a filter system but not everyone. People can not afford will have to buy bottle water here.
We use a filter. Bottled water gets spendy, and the plastic bottles do fill up the bin faster and unescessarily. And I like my water to be stored in the fridge. Tap water isn't cold enough and has a taste. Does anyone know what's in the Brita/Pur water filters, anyway?
I think Brita uses activated carbon. That's what we use. I grew up somewhere (Billings, MT) with delicious tap water (I wish I could bring it back with me when I visit). However, I live in Tempe, AZ (basically a suburb of Phoenix) and the water is awful--probably because no one should be living in the desert. We use Brita filters, a water station, or I get it out of a filtered drinking fountain. I rarely buy bottled water because 1) I hate the taste of bottled water...too demineralized; 2) Way too much waste. It makes me sick to see the recycling bins overflowing with plastic bottles (I get even more sick seeing them in the trash can next to the recycling); and 3) Too expensive. You'd think this would deter people from buying so many bottles and using reusable bottles instead.
Well, honestly, I think it's ridiculous that San Francisco is banning people from using things like bottled water. And then they just banned plastic bags, and they either already banned styrofoam or are thinking about it.
I'm against the use of force or compulsion to MAKE people change their habits. I'm all for spreading awareness, and educating people, as well as offering alternative, better options. But ... the government banning things like this is ridiculous. Especially since the government is THE biggest polluter. Combine all private businesses and they STILL don't surpass the government in pollution. So, it seems a bit hypocritical for the government to issue all these bans while they, themselves, go off and pollute the world.
Having said that, I drink bottled water anywhere outside of the US. I drink filtered tap water in the US. I paid WAY too much money for a filter to not use it. ;D
Ideally, one day, I'd like to live in a place where I can have my own well. I don't personally think it's healthy to drink chlorine and fluroide and other crap which is present (in small quanitites) in tap water.
i use a brita filter when i am at school and at my parents they buy the filtered water t put in re-fillable 3 gallon jugs. i always use a nalgene to drink my water out of, though i have heard those are just as bad as reusing the disposable plastic bottles. does anyone know about that?
When we lived in Lubbock, we had to buy bottled water because my husband was ordered to by his doctor (bad kidney stones). The water is very hard and full of calcium there. Where my parents live, the water at times has been so bad that a man wrote into the newspaper claiming that the last time he tasted water so awful was in Korea during the war and there was a dead Korean in the water well! They can't drink the tap water at all so they have to buy RO water. Here we can drink the tap water but I buy RO water to make our Kombucha tea because the culture is sensitive to chemicals. The plastic bottles are refillable and recyclable, you know, so I don't have a problem with it.
In Oklahoma, we buy gallons of filtered water, then recycle the jugs. The tap tastes like a nasty assortment of metals. In Maryland, the tap water was excellent and pure tasting. I miss that!
In DC, we had all this craziness with the lead in the municipal water a few years ago, so the city recommended everyone use filters on the tap (they were even sending us the replacement filters for a while). I've been using a Brit@ filter since college-- we had a pitcher, and now we have one that goes directly on the tap. I can't stand bottled water b/c of the amount of waste-- even if you recycle the bottle, the amount of energy used to cart away and do the actual recycling is just insane. And to be frank, since so many people drink bottled water "on the go" where recycling facilities aren't readily available, most of the bottles end up in the trash. Or worse, in the street or in my yard.
Anyway, Nalgene is supposed to be better than those disposable water bottles. We bought polyethelene bottles at our co-op and refill those with our filtered tap water. Much cheaper, and it just makes sense with the amount of water we drink.
I was told not to use charcoal filters on my taps here because of the extreme summer heat, they said that the charcoal would grow "cultures" (mould I guess) with the contamination in the water. Not sure I believe that! But it does get up to like 115º F, and higher, here.
Any feedback?
The Brita filters are waaay expensive here. I did see some less expensive ones in LIDL but it's probably a one off, you got 4 filters and then you'd have to toss the pitcher because they specialise in selling (dumping?) job lots of products that didn't sell elsewhere in Europe.
I would love to drink tap water, but it tastes terrible here. I don't buy small bottles of water, though. We have six 1/2 gallon glass bottles that we take to the water machine every few days. I know that I should just get over it and drink from the tap. Tap water is usually more regulated than bottled, I hate the idea of paying for water and I think that the bottled water industry is doing major damage--yet still I pay for it. Ugh. I miss well water! God knows what was in it, but the taste was great.
If your tap water tastes bad because of chlorine try filling pitchers with it and letting them sit for a few hours before using. Chlorine evaporates out of water fairly quickly.
There are also a number of good water filtration systems on the market that will remove chlorine and other impurities. I used a Brita system for a long time. It was just a pitcher with a changeble filter cartridge. Pour water in the top and it drips through the filter into the base of the pitcher. Clean water and no plastic bottle to throw in the landfill.
I was told not to use charcoal filters on my taps here because of the extreme summer heat, they said that the charcoal would grow "cultures" (mould I guess) with the contamination in the water. Not sure I believe that! But it does get up to like 115º F, and higher, here.
Any feedback?
They probably would grow mold, but this wouldn't apply to filters in water pitchers (what I use) or the ones that attach to the faucet, correct? Since these aren't outside, then they wouldn't be exposed to the extreme summer heat. In reference to the expensive Brita filters, they recommend changing them WAY too often. I've gone nearly a year without changing a filter, and the water was just fine (although by the last month or so, it was starting to taste more like the tap). Maybe you could just not change them as often and save some $$$
Well, even if the water tastes the same, if you are filtering for mineral reasons you might want to change them more frequently than that. Like I said, we filter because of the lead in the water, so it's not just about taste.
That's interesting that Brit@ is so expensive in Spain-- they're practically a staple for college kids here in in the States, or at least in this region. Next time you have friends or family coming to you from across the pond, ask them to stock up their suitcase. :)
my husband INSISTS on drinking bottled water..thankfully we recycle..I can honestly say that 3/4 of our "plastics" we recycle are water bottles. I drink tap (we have well water) water filtered thru my Pur pitchers. I think it tastes BETTER than any of the bottled waters out there.
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I only buy bottled water if I'm out somewhere and it's an emergency. I have a Pur filter on my kitchen faucet and also one of those Pur fridge tanks with the spigot (not sure how much it holds). I love both of them and try only to drink the filtered tap water. It has always tasted clean to me. We have a filtered tap water cooler at work which is also awesome. I just bought two Klean Kanteens because my Nalgene bottles were starting to make the water taste funny, no matter how thoroughly or frequently I cleaned them. I also read about the leaching of plastic into the water - I don't think Nalgene is worse than the disposable plastic water bottles, but I love my stainless steel Klean Kanteens! No more stale or plastic-y taste! And they're really cute too.
www.kleankanteen.com