The following is an excerpt from http://www.blessedearth.org/blogs/why-i-dont-drink-bottled-water/ Blessed Earth is an educational nonprofit inspiring faithful stewardship of all creation and is motivated by the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation.
During my sophomore year of college, I spent four months studying in France. I had to make many language and cultural adjustments, but one of the biggest surprises was the general lack of public water fountains. As I journeyed across Europe on weekends and vacations, I learned the necessity of carrying a bottle of water. Back home in the U.S., more people than ever are buying bottled water. Even in these difficult economic times, Americans purchase 500 million bottles of water every week! And this is despite the fact that we have near universal access to clean water in the United States (a blessing not afforded to more than a billion of our global neighbors). So why exactly is bottled water so bad? Here are just a few of the many reasons to avoid purchasing bottled water:
• Bottled water costs around 2,000 times more than tap water. As Annie Leonard of www.storyofstuff.com points out, that’s like paying $10,000 for a sandwich
• Much of the bottled water on the market today (including Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani) is nothing more than filtered tap water
• 2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown into the landfill every hour
• Studies have shown that bottled water is no healthier than tap water in the U.S.
• Over 47 million gallons of oil are used per year to produce bottled water
• Currently only 10% – 20% of water bottles are recycled
• Manufacturers must use an additional 5 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water
My lesson learned traveling the trains of Europe has stuck with me. Anytime our family leaves the house for more than an hour we bring a reusable water bottle (or two or three) with us. When eating out we use our own water bottles when possible, and ask for tap water in nice restaurants where pulling out our Nalgenes might be frowned upon. If we forget, we try to use water fountains. If you want to filter your water, keep a pitcher in the frig and refill it frequently. While it may seem like a small matter whether your family uses tap vs. bottled water, remember this—using tap water both saves money and helps take care of God’s creation.
OK, I don’t know about you, but some of the recently mega-publicized info about the negative effects of bottled water has me consumed with doubt, fear, anxiety, and anger. Like probably most of you, I have spent my adult life drinking as much water as possible in the interests of health. My commitment goes in waves, but I do my best. About two years ago, I bought a S'Well, and I have been trying to use it in place of purcashing bottled water. And, as we all know – 8 glasses a day or else death by dehydration or a supposed laundry list of other negative side effects. But I've been following the news on how many municipalities around the world have been proposing and even enacting bottled water bans. It seems like the news about resource wastage, transportation emissions, and plastic litter is old news now, but it is still very upsetting if you pay attention to it.
I’m in Alexandria VA where the water is clean, and I drink it out of the tap (well actually out of the filtered and chilled water dispenser on my refrigerator). And I drink a LOT of water. What's really concerning is that here we are, supposedly doing that for our health, but there is ongoing concern about the use of plastics in consumer food packaging solutions, not just about the environmental impact of the disposal of these products, but concerns about consumer safety. The simple fact is that I need to drink water all day or I don’t feel optimally well. And when I have ended up with a plastic water bottle (gifted at an event or included with a meal or purchased out of desperation when I forgot my refillable bottle), I have always tried to reuse those bottles by refilling them over and over again, in an effort to be as green as possible.
Then whammo! Here comes the news that, not only am I paying the equivalent of $10,000 for a sandwich for each of these bottles, but toxins leaching from plastics might be related to disorders in humans such as infertility and cancer. Now, every time I take a sip of water these words drift like clouds across my vision … leaching styrene di-2-ehtylhexyl phthalate endocrine disruptor human carcinogen.
Am I exaggerating? If I'm not - the damage is already done to the environment, to me, and to all of my organs - even more outrageous when in many cases I have just been drinking filtered tap water from another city that has been put into this poisonous container and then sold to me at an outrageous price! Yes, it has only been a year since scientists were able to use advance laser spectroscopy to analyze water bottles made of polystyrene and polycarbonate for contamination, but that doesn't mean the contamination is only a year old - we are just now able to identify what has been poisoning us for the last generation. I'm QUITE SURE these and other chemicals will be "exposed" in a future issue of a respected scientific journal that will be terrifying.
WHAT IN THE SAM HILL?!?!?
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