Drink Your Tap Water

Image from National Geographic

While I continue to wait for resources to come to the library about HFCS, here's something to think about. (You know, I keep tackling subjects thinking,"Oh this won't take long." Then I get sucked in and can't stop adding info. Let me know if you enjoy this because sometimes I wonder if I should spend my time this way...)

Some things to think about:

*In 2008, sales of bottled water in the U.S. reached 8.6 billions gallons, 28.6% of the liquid refreshment sales. The only drink that outsold water was carbonated beverages (Which is scarier, the number of people buying a resource readily available at home or the number of people drinking soda?).
*1.5 millions gallons of oil are used to make plastic bottles for bottled water in a year. And of course, there is all that oil used to transport the bottled water.
*Nationwide, only about 10% of plastic water bottles are recycled. That plastic bottle could take up to a 1000 years in a landfill to decompose or maybe as little as 400 years!.
*An 8-12 fl. oz. bottle of water can cost between $.50-$2.00. Of course, sometimes that same water will cost $3.00 at the ball park. Water from your tap costs about $0.1 per gallon (125 fl. oz. in a gallon). And if you buy Brita's top of the line filter for your kitchen faucet, a gallon costs about $0.18.
*While the FDA regulates both tap water and bottled water. You can't be certain that your bottled water is any safer than your tap water. In most cases, the purity of tap water vs. bottled water is similar. Some bottled water like Dansani and Aquafina come straight from municipal sources. Some bottled water come from springs that have more bacteria in it than your tap water. The source of the water and any treatments it undergoes has to be listed on the label of the bottle. Do your homework if you buy bottled water for purity.
* Across the board, everyone admits the tap water in the United States is safe. The taste may vary from place to place, but the minerals that cause the taste variations are not harmful ones. There is segment of the population with severely compromised immune systems and some children with special needs who are sensitive to even the small amounts of metals and mineral deposits in our tap water. These people shouldn't drink the tap water, but for most people, our tap water is perfect and cheap.
* Since the explosion of the bottled water industry, federal spending on our public water systems has declined more than 50% (we know this here as our water rates are going up 40% to support necessary upkeep to the water treatment plant). Organizations like the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Foundation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council all urge their supporters to drink less bottled water. There are even some religious organizations, such as United Church of Canada, National Coalition of American Nuns and Presbyterians for Restoring Creation that consider the repackaging of a basic resource unethical and have taken a stand on the issue.
* To be fair, many bottled water companies, including Aquafina and Dasani, have responded to the environmental concern by creating bottles that use less plastic than they were originally created. Better. But still unconvincing. There is a Colorado-based water bottler called BIOTA that uses a bio-degradable bottle made from corn. Given the right conditions it decomposes in 75-80 days.

By all accounts, from the FDA to the EPA to nonprofits alike, tap water in this country is safe and healthy. The standards for tap water are almost equal to those for bottled water (some sources say the standards for tap water are more stringent, but I did find one FDA site that admitted tap water is allowed a slightly higher level of led, still safe, but higher, than bottled water because of all those old pipes). If you are still concerned about some of the metals and minerals that remain in tap water (check your water quality at the EPA's safe water site , the best thing to do is buy a good filter system for your kitchen.
And if you buy bottled water for convenience, invest instead in several stainless steel water bottles and keep them filled with tap water. (Should I do a post on why stainless is the best water bottle, or do you already know?)

What to do? Stop buying bottled water. If you want, you could go to the Food and Water Watch website. Read their list of facts about bottled water and then sign their take back the tap pledge with your kids. Or you could join me in adding the book Blue Covenant by Maude Barlow to your summer reading list. Its a book about how water has been an imperiled resource and about the devastation caused by privatization of water rights. I know that living in a state surrounded by huge freshwater lakes makes water rights into a hard-to-comprehend topic. But my 2.5 years in Montana taught me that water is an enormous issue as fights about water between the city, the ranchers, and the wealthy hiding in the mountains broke out every week. It's an issue worth learning about.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water, "Is Bottled Water Better?" from the nonprofit Union of Concerned citizens website, Saginaw News, www.dansani.com, www.aquafina.com ,http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/policies,http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/402_h2o.html/2006/w143,http://www.epa.gov/safewater/faq/faq.html, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0224_060224_bottled_water_2.html