http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-tap-water-is-best.html
Why Tap Water is Best
Consumers are wasting billions of dollars a year on billions of gallons of bottled water in large part because advertising spin has led them to believe that water in a bottle is safer or better than tap water.
Truth is, tap water generally is just as safe, clean, and healthy as bottled water, and in many cases more so. In fact, the federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing and monitoring of municipal drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency requires that utility companies test municipal water hundreds of times per month, while the Food and Drug Administration requires only one water test per week by bottling companies.
Bottled water causes many equity, public health, and environmental problems. Beverage companies often take water from municipal or underground sources that local people need. As much as 40 percent of bottled water comes from the tap. Producing plastic bottles uses energy and emits toxic chemicals. Transporting the bottled water spews pollution into the air, adding to global climate change.
Taking Back the Tap Helps Your Health, Your Pocketbook, and Our Environment
By turning to your home tap, you’ll avoid the arsenic, microbes, toxins, and other pollutants that tests have found in various bottled water brands. What’s more, you’ll face less risk of exposure to chemicals that could leach from the plastic bottle into the water.
Turning to tap water could help you save money, as well. Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water.
Giving up bottled water also helps our environment. Annual production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet U.S. consumer demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil, not including the cost of transporting the bottled water to consumers. That more or less equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles on U.S. roads each year. Worldwide bottling of water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic each year. And in the end, about 86 percent of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the garbage instead of being recycled.
Read about water filters here.
Food & Water Watch is an organization dedicated to the belief that the public should be able to count on our government to oversee and protect the quality and safety of food and water. For more information, go to www.foodandwaterwatch.org.
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56 comments
add your comment »Is it possible to deflouride water? I thought that people with tropical fish deflourated water for their fish tanks.
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I have a distiller on my cabinet and the only water I use, drinking, cooking, even rinsing the just washed dishes, cooking pasta and the dog's water comes out of that little jewel. Think about a filter on your shower. Your skin absorbs a great amount of flouride. There is no such thing as free air and water anymore. I pay a big monthly bill for water that's only fit for watering the lawn.
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Regarding fluoride in tap water, bear in mind that much of bottled water is merely tap water. Also cola's, reconstituted juices, fruit and energy "drinks" or anything else that has water in it. Any or all of these things could well be poisoned with fluoride depending upon where they originate. This post is not meant to scare but to inform.
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Ellyn wrote "Even the American Dental Association has alerted that infants and young children should not be tap water containing fluoride, and the Kidney associations have strongly commented on how harmful fluorided water is for kidney patients." I thought it was with young children in mind that they wanted to put fluoride in the water in the first place. How backward and not thought through is their thinking.
One would think we can get the fluoride removed if awareness increases!!!Thanks for your fluoride alert. I will check it out.
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The Fluoride Action Network ( http://www.fluoridealert.org ) gives a lot of excellent information on the effects of fluorosilicic acid ,called fluoride, in water systems. Even the American Dental Association has alerted that infants and young children should not be tap water containing fluoride, and the Kidney associations have strongly commented on how harmful fluorided water is for kidney patients.
Here is more from the Fluoride Action Network:
PROFESSIONALS' STATEMENT: 2,648 Medical, Scientific, and Environmental Professionals Calling for End to Fluoridation Worldwide
September 30: U.S. signers (A-M - N-Z) and International signers include:
• 388 Nurses (RN, MSN, BSN, ARNP, APRN, LNC, RGON)
• 369 PhD's - includes DSc (Doctor of Science); EdD (Doctor of Education); DrPH (Doctor of Public Health)
•355 DC's (Doctor of Chiropractic, includes M Chiro)
• 318 MD's (includes MBBS)
• 259 Dentists (DDS, DMD, BDS)
• 131 ND's (Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine)
• 66 Lawyers (JD, LLB, Avvocato)
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(Cont'd from post below)
It'd encourage buying in bulk (refilling our own bottles we wash ourselves, & are responsible for since we're the ones who have to deal with it if it's not clean enough etc.) if they were serious about just stopping the plastic waste. We rarely even have that option though. Recycling is the last thing we should be doing, especially when it comes to plastics. That process emits harmful gases to both our health, & the climate. That's why we need to re-use first. & the ones that we do try to recycle, they often can't be recycled.
I hear this argument, & I agree strongly with many things, but I know it's indicative to the area, as some tap water's disgusting & some bottled water is reliable & healthy. We've got to get to know our companies, do our research. Avoid Nestle & Coke, they're crooks! Look to see where it's bottled from if you must get water. But better yet, if you buy bottled water, buy it from the companies that care enough to offer reusable/refillable containers. They at least care. & if a spring water's been tested, that's probably your best bet. One of the best companies (work ethics etc.)I know is Eldorado Springs Water. I tested their water on my plants compared to different waters, & those ones thrived. Why punish good companies & reward Brita when it's just going to do you more harm anyway?
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The point of this is to try to keep us from wasting our money from many companies that simply just fill plastic bottles with tap water, which may or may not be more harmful for us. The problem with that, which I do believe Mel's honesty, is that some water from tap's crap, while some water in bottles is good. The problem with many water brands is not just the bottle waste, which is horrid, but many are sleazy thieves (Nestle & Coke--see FLOW). But my issues w/the anti-bottled water movement are for different reasons, as I support the above mentioned ones. Those would be that the funding from this movement comes from companies like Britta, who sells water filters. Whether or not those can get all the crap out, I don't know, but they also remove many necessary minerals & such. In many cases, it's healthier to drink straight from your toxic tap. If you do this, let your water sit for 24 hrs to evaporate the chlorine, or boil it. Also, a filter on your shower would be recommended too, as our skin soaks up toxins hugely as well, just not through our liver, it's still extremely harmful. But glass as a replacement for bottled water wastes more gas in production & delivery than plastic, & the plastic--since it's a one time use & water & oil repel each other(plastic's made of oil)--healthwise, it's probably not the worst thing to drink out of. Yet soda, oil, alcohol etc., are. I'm all for less waste, but if this were serious, it'd include those & encourage
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I want to mention that there is a high percentage of Chlorine in our tap water. I can smell the chlorine and taste it in my tap water. Even when one takes a shower or bath, chlorine can be potentially dangerous.
http://www.bidness.com/esd/showering.htm
Tap water is not safe unless purified. Chlorine is not the only substance that comes out of our faucet as well.
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Vested interests don't want to clean up our water supplies. They rationalize some bogus idea with false science as to why they need to put said chemicals in our water supply, meanwhile getting handsomely paid to do so. Now that the government wants to take over 17% plus of our national budget in health care, they will certainly have long lines of sick people from conditions that could largely be prevented if we had clean water. I feel sure that there is a better way!
Absolutely demand purification for your sewage, as Wisconsin has reported a problem. We don't benefit from these poisons being added to our water!!! If someone wants fluoride for their kids teeth, then let them purchase fluoride pills and mix their own "kiddie cocktails". Leave the rest of us out of the loop. We don't want fluoride in our water. Wish we could start there, then get out the ammonia and other garbage. Stop using our water supply as a dumping ground!! I'm sure that all people reporting here recycle, but we are tired of plastic bottles!!!
And further more try to stay away from using aluminum bottles. Aluminum is not good for you. I guess at this point the best choice is stainless steel. That is what I've gone to. I purchase H2O in 5 gallon jugs, and transfer it to the s. steel. Water from a reputable company, though I would like to invest in a whole house purification system. That would be even better!!
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This entire article is BS. For one thing I buy not just "bottled" water, but purified water through reverse osmosis. And why? Well lets see many reasons, first and foremost? Since the use of genetically modified crops and TONS of roundup the bacteria here locally in Wisconsin is insane all of our lakes and rivers are becoming algae swamps full of botulism and ecoli!!! To try to kill that bacteria the "idiots" that be, have decided to add more chemical waste to our water. So now instead of chlorine, flouride and maybe iodine in some areas it now has the added boost of ammonia. Which can do ALL organ damage. WATER should NOT give you heart burn if it does? Buy purified water. Don't believe me? Come to wisconsin and drink the dang water!!! Not to mention sewer waste which is NOT really treated NOR filtered it is just dumped back into ALL water supplies everywhere. Yum drink up!
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