Think Bottled Water Is Your Best Choice? Surprising Facts You Need To Know

Bottled water

I used to think bottled water was the best water I could get but after doing further research I found out this may not be the case. There are several things wrong with bottled water. Most bottled water is not as pure and clean as you think it is. Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it is, in fact, no safer or cleaner. The bottled water industry spends millions of dollars a year to convince us that their product is somehow safer or healthier than tap water, when in fact that's just not true," says Victoria Kaplan, senior organizer with Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit that recently launched a Take Back the Tap campaign to get consumers to ditch bottled water. "As much as 40 percent of bottled water started out as the same tap water that we get at home," she adds. A 1999 Natural Resources Defense Council study found that, with required quarterly testing, tap water may even be of a higher quality than bottled, which is only tested annually.

Water aside, the plastic used in single use bottles can pose more of a contamination threat than the water. A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles (if you look on the bottom of anything plastic you will see a number) however, as #1 bottles are reused, as they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a possible human carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disruptor. Also, because the plastic is porous you'll likely get a swill of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse #1 plastic bottles (taken from an article called Tapped Out, 8-1-2007 by Solvie Karlstrom). Even though PET bottles are supposed to be safe for a one time use, I personally do not like them. Excessive heat can cause leeching of chemicals and I do not know if and how long the bottles sat in a hot warehouse or in a hot truck while being transported.

The safer alternative is supposed to be polycarbonate bottles, which can be reused so they do have less of a negative impact on the environment. However polycarbonate bottles are manufactured with bisphenol A or BPA, this is a chemical that mimics estrogen. BPA is used in the manufacture of baby bottles and serious questions have been raised about the safety of the bottles. Some manufacturers have stopped using it but some have not. Plastic manufacturers claim that polycarbonate is extremely safe, but they admit it does leech BPA however they claim the amount is so small it is negligible. If the only plastic you used was a polycarbonate bottle then that might be true. They also advise never putting anything hot in polycarbonate because this speeds up the leeching process. But BPA is used to manufacture all kinds of plastics and if you store your food in plastic or put plastic in the microwave, you are getting exposed to toxic chemicals.

Personally, I do not store my food in any kind of plastic. I only use glass bowls. You can buy small glass bowls to carry your lunch to work. They are heavier but much safer. If you microwave food you should only use glass bowls. BPA is also found in the lining of canned goods. In fact, it is in much higher levels in canned goods than plastic bottles. The government keeps telling us that we're not getting enough exposure to these chemicals to harm us. But when you start looking at all the chemicals and toxins we ingest and come in contact with every day, I believe it does have an impact on your health.

Bottled water also has a negative impact on the environment; every hour Americans throw away 2.5 million empty plastic bottles. The most conservative source I read estimates over 10 billion bottles are thrown into landfills every year. Not to mention the amount of fossil fuel it takes to make these bottles.

So what can you do? First off, don't buy bottled water. Get yourself a stainless steel canteen and put your own filtered water, which according to reports will be safer and cleaner than any water in a bottle. It is a simple thing to do to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals in plastic and also to help the environment. You can visit  www.cleancanteen.com  You can also limit your intake of canned goods and do not store anything in plastic.

See my post on water filters for information on which water filtration system to purchase.