The Truth About Bottled Water

[okarol]

The Truth About Bottled Water
Men's Health
By David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding - Posted on Tue, Jul 21, 2009, 1:35 pm PDT

Imagine you’ve just been given a choice: You have to drink from one of two containers. One container is a cup from your own kitchen, and it contains a product that has passed strict state, federal and local guidelines for cleanliness and quality. Oh, and it’s free. The second container comes from a manufacturing plant somewhere, and its contents—while seemingly identical to your first choice—have not been subjected to the same strict national and local standards. It costs approximately four times more than gasoline. These products both look and taste nearly identical.

Which do you choose?

If you chose beverage A, congratulations: You just saved yourself a whole lot of money, and, perhaps, even contaminants, too. But if you picked beverage B, then you’ll be spending hundreds of unnecessary dollars on bottled water this year. Sure, bottled water is convenient, trendy, and may well be just as pure as what comes out of your tap. But it’s hardly a smart investment for your pocketbook, your body or our planet. Eat This, Not That! decided to take a closer look at what’s behind the pristine images and elegant-sounding names printed on those bottles.
 
You may actually be drinking tap water.
Case in point: Dasani, a Coca-Cola product. Despite its exotic-sounding name, Dasani is simply purified tap water that’s had minerals added back in. For example, if your Dasani water was bottled at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Philadelphia, you’re drinking Philly tap water. But it’s not the only brand of water that relies on city pipes to provide its product. About 25 percent of all bottled water is taken from municipal water sources, including Pepsi’s Aquafina.
 
Bottled water isn’t always pure.
Scan the labels of the leading brands and you see variations on the words “pure” and “natural” and “pristine” over and over again. And when a Cornell University marketing class studied consumer perceptions of bottled water, they found that people thought it was cleaner, with less bacteria. But that may not actually be true. For example, in a 4-year review that included the testing of 1,000 bottles of water, the Natural Resources Defense Council—one the country’s most ardent environmental crusaders—found that “about 22 percent of the brands we tested contained, in at least one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits.”
 
It’s not clear where the plastic container ends and the drink begins.
Turns out, when certain plastics are heated at a high temperature, chemicals from the plastics may leach into container’s contents. So there’s been a flurry of speculation recently as to whether the amounts of these chemicals are actually harmful, and whether this is even a concern when it comes to water bottles—which aren’t likely to be placed in boiling water or even a microwave. While the jury is still out on realistic health ramifications, it seems that, yes, small amounts of chemicals from PET water bottles such as antimony—a semi-metal that’s thought to be toxic in large doses—can accumulate the longer bottled water is stored in a hot environment. Which, of course, is probably a good reason to avoid storing bottled water in your garage for six months—or better yet, to just reach for tap instead.
 
Our country’s high demand for oil isn’t just due to long commutes.
Most water bottles are composed of a plastic called polyethylene terepthalate (PET). Now, to make PET, you need crude oil. Specifically, 17 million barrels of oil are used in the production of PET water bottles ever year, estimate University of Louisville scientists. No wonder the per ounce cost of bottled water rivals that of gasoline. What’s more, 86 percent of 30 billion PET water bottles sold annually are tossed in the trash, instead of being recycled, according to data from the Container Recycling Institute. That’s a lot of waste—waste that will outlive you, your children, and your children’s children. You see, PET bottles take 400 to 1000 years to degrade. Which begs the question: If our current rate of consumption continues, where will we put all of this discarded plastic?
 
To learn the truth about diet soda, energy drinks and discover the best no-diet weight loss solutions on the planet, check out all of the eye-popping lists at eatthis.com. Also, sign up for your FREE Eat This Not That! newsletter and stay informed about the best choices for you and your family.

[David13]

Good information.  Thanks, okarol!   

[Zach]

Imagine you’ve just been given a choice: You have to drink from one of two containers. One container is a cup from your own kitchen, and it contains a product that has passed strict state, federal and local guidelines for cleanliness and quality. Oh, and it’s free.

The author needs to get the facts straight. Tap water is not free.
However, I do agree that buying bottled water is a waste of money.

[jbeany]

Depends on where you are at, Zach - my tap water is free from my well, although I suppose you can count the cost of the electric pump, since I'm not that inclined to go out and pump it by hand. . .

[Chris]

I missed the news a couple days ago, but there was something proposed on regulating bottled water.
In the old days, Hinckley Schmitt definitely had a taste differebce that was better than tap water, not anymore. With all the different brands out there, they all taste the same and vary in cost.

Grandparents had a well in their backyard in Arizona and the water was  good for watering plants only. Luckily the house was connected later to city water.

[Des]

Just to add.....

I was told not to drink "mineral" water at all just the plain "still" cleaned water. They say the minerals are not good for ckd.

?

[Jean]

Our tap water not only does not taste good, it sometimes smells like rotten eggs. However, I am getting tired of lugging the cases home of bottled water.

[RichardMEL]

Just to add.....

I was told not to drink "mineral" water at all just the plain "still" cleaned water. They say the minerals are not good for ckd.

?

Yep, that's correct. If you look at a mineral water "average" breakdown has lots of stuff we need to be concerned about like Na (Sodium), K (Potassium), Mg (Magnesium) & Calcium, plus others...

check this link on euro mineral waters for an example:
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_mineral_waters.shtml

[Stoday]

The definition of "mineral water" in the US is different from that in Europe.

In the US, mineral water must contain at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids. In Europe it must have come from an underground source. Thus it does not necessarily have a high mineral content in the EU.

You can see from the handy table that Richard posted that many European mineral waters could not be called such in the US.

Europe has much tighter legislation for mineral waters, so does not have all the downsides identified by Okarol. Indeed, the legislation was tightened up even further only last month EU directive

.