Do You Really Know What's in Your Water?

by raychelle

First of all, I'm no water expert :) But I do enjoy learning ways to stay healthy and at the same time, reduce my impact on earth... and all below are thanks to Miss Google!

Here are some general statements about water.

1. Bottled water is often just filtered tap water. Approximately 25% of our bottled water are actually unfiltered tap water (http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp)

2. Bottled water are inconsistent in their purity. Out of 1,000 bottled waters, 22% of the bottles contained chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits (http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp). In another test of 57 different water bottles, 15 bottles had significantly higher bacteria levels than tap water, more than twice as high as the most contaminated tap water sample (http://www.case.edu/pubaff/univcomm/water.htm).

3. Plastic is the worst kind of material you can store your water (or food) in. Only after 10 weeks in a plastic bottle, it releases phthalates which disrupts testosterone and other hormones http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp

Just a tidbit I learned - EPA oversees tap water, which is under more stringent testing and criteria... FDA oversees bottled water, and bottled water companies are not required to submit their water for third party/independent testing.

Personally, I drink DC tap water through a ceramic water-filtration system with a biodegradable 'cartridge' made from clay that removes all but .01% of the pathogens in the water... www.grist.org

I review my experience with that ceramic crock in an earlier post on this site under Eco-Product Reviews, click here to go there.

Want to read some more? More interesting, although not recent - research statistics can be found here from Natural Resources Defense Council:
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp