Bottled Water

 oh MAN that is gross.  i wonder how much of the contaminants that come from bottled water are a result of the water bottles sitting out in the sun and on store shelves for months at a time....

"Tests showed coliform bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium."

Yum....

I wonder how the pain reliever got in there.  I know that there's an issue with people holding to the old beliefs that it's okay to throw perscription drugs down the toilet (but then our santitation processes don't really get that stuff out once it's dissolved so it ends up contaminating our water ways).

The NRDC did a study like this back in 1999 which found a fair amount of contamination and really spotty regulation.

Not too long ago I read that there's all kinds of prescription drugs in our water systems because people are taking so much that their bodies just don't absorb it all.  So you need to treat the water well to filter all that stuff out.  And since some bottled water is just re-filtered tap water (i.e. Aquafina and Dasani), if their filtering process isn't good enough, that would be why all that stuff was found in the bottled water.

I never buy bottled water unless I am in a situation where there is no potable water around. If I can anticipate a situation like that I bring my water bottle. I just never liked producing more garbage than it is absolutely necessary.

But, here are five reasons why not to drink bottled water:

http://lighterfootstep.com/2008/05/five-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water/

Edited by eris - Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:33:23 GMT

There is now a filtered stainless steel water bottle on the market that filters tap water, lakes, streams and rivers.  It can be found at www.greenmooseboutique.com It is amazing, as I have been using one for 1 month now.  I love it. 

There was a wonderful story at the US consulate in Bombay years back about how bad the city water was. If you drank it you would certainly die within a short period of time.

The people at the consulate were quite happy that they had the large bottles of water so they were safe.

One morning someone went in early and saw the guy replacing the bottle - he took it in the next room, filled it from the tap and put it back on the stand.

I thought it was really funny as I drank the tap water all the time with no ill affects.

Some areas of the city where the pressure would go low from time to time had a real problem but not the core area.