Bottled Water

[JI7]

why do so many people drink bottled water these days ? i can understand if they live in an area where the water isn't that great. but this is not the case in many parts of the United States.

have the corporations convinced people that for whatever reason bottled water is better and worth paying extra for ? it looks that way to me.

people shouldn't have to pay for water other than what we all pay as a community and all those plastic bottles doesn't do the environment any good either.

[skids]

1. There's actually a "symbolic boycott" being called for.

See the TV documentary "Thirst".

The boycott is being called for by people in developing countries where Word Bank privatization of water supplies is taking place. They had one vollage in India where water was more expensive than milk.

I normally don't go for boycotts, because the companies never notice unless the boycott is highly organized and extremely well publicised (which they never are.) But this one doesn't aim to hit a particular company, just as a symbolic gesture, and is so poetic.

But, alas, I don't drink the stuff in the first place.

[JI7]

5. what station was this documentary on ?

i would be interested in seeing it.

i don't really drink the stuff either so it wouldn't really be a "boycott" for me. but i am going to start taking my reusable water bottle with me which i fill with tap water since so many places only offer bottled water now. and just do anything else to try to avoid drinking the stuff unless i really needed to.

it use to be that at most food places they would not charge for water but now many only offer bottled water.

[skids]

8. It was shown in last week's P.O.V. (pbs) slot.

...but it has it's own webpage

http://www.thirstthemovie.org/index.html

Also, the last two P.O.V.s before that were both incredible.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/thefirenexttime/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/streetfight/index.html

...very thought provoking and educational material.

[Journeyman]

9. Make certain to clean your bottle regularly. . .

Researchers are finding reused water bottles are contaminated with various bacterias, including fecal coliforms. These bacteria are coming from you, in the form of backwash as you drink, and though you may be the only one using the bottle, the potential for a host of gastrointestinal infections is quite real.

Google "reused water bottles" for a couple dozen news reports.

[shanti]

53. wow, thanks for the heads up!

i did not know this!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. I suppose convenience is part of it.

Bottled water is a lot easier to carry around on the go than a basic cup.

[FreedomAngel82]

3. And more too

You can have more in it too depending on the size. I like filtered water. I don't like tap water anymore. Last time I was at my grandparents I drank some and thought I was going to gag. :shrug: I just didn't like it. I'm way too used to filtered water. I've drunk bottled water a few times and I like it pretty well. I wouldn't spend $2 on water though unless I was desperate or something.

[thegreatwildebeest]

6. Than buy an algene...

...and fill it up at the faucet. In fact, thats what I do. I have a rotation of water bottle in my fridge so I don't have to do the absolutely ridiculous thing of buying bottled water.

[SoCalDem]

13. And..Places of business often do not have water fountains

anymore.. When I was a kid, there were even water fountains on the STREET at certain corners..and every department store in downtown had a drinking fountain..

Now,places have vending machines with $2 soft drinks & water:(

[Jamison]

4. My tap water tastes nasty as hell.

So I do drink bottled water. It's municipal water, but they must add something funky to it b/c it tastes really bad. I'm gonna buck up and get a Brita pitcher or filter sometime soon tho so I don't have to buy bottled water.

[thegreatwildebeest]

44. You should probably...

...alert the EPA about that, or atleast call up your local water district and ask whats up. Every water district in America MUST supply you with the most recent annual report of their water quality. If you see things on their that seem sketchy, than contact someone at your local regional EPA office.

[DemonFighterLives]

7. Being a recent convert

I will tell my story. Our water started tasting terrible in Mpls. We decided to buy a filter pitcher which works pretty good.
On the tinfoil side, with this admin in charge, I don't trust them with the water sources. That doesn't mean all bottled water is safe either, but it at least fools the taste buds. The plastic bottles are recycled. I know one thing we are drinking a lot less pop which is more expensive and probably not as good for us.

I used to consider it a sort of yuppy thing until the water tasted so putrid.

[AndyTiedye]

10. Treated Water is No Good for Sourdough (or Making Yougurt?)

Treated water should not be added to sourdough. The sourdough culture
does not like it.
It probably isn't good for making yogurt either,
and if you're trying to grow shitakes or any other kind of mushroom
you certainly don't want treated water.

Filters can remove chlorine, but not chloramine.

[Endangered Specie]

11. If your tap tastes bad.. get a filter.

[ComerPerro]

48. I have a fliter, and the water from it still tastes odd. A new filter

it just tastes really bad.

And, if I buy water bottles, I can refil them at work, and use the same one all day.

[Sapphocrat]

12. Because tap water is potentially dangerous to one's thyroid

There appears to be a correlation between fluoridated water and thyroid disease (fluoride may be fine for your teeth, but were we really meant to ingest the stuff on a daily basis?).

Worse, in some areas (e.g., here in Northern California) there is evidence of perchlorate (a rocket-fuel byproduct) in our tap water.

In fact, our cows' milk appears to tainted with percholate, too -- and, perhaps, most horrifying, in women's breast milk.

See also:
http://www.space.com/news/rocket_fuel_040622.html ("... The EWG study didn't determine how the chemical ended up in cows milk, but perchlorate has been found in many of the state's water sources, which are used to irrigate farmland and grow crops fed to cows. ...")

So that's why I drink only bottled water. I don't drink tap water anymore, ever. I even cook with bottled water.

I also gave up cows' milk (which I adore, and miss terribly) -- now it's rice milk, or nothing. (Can't drink soy milk -- soy also does a really bad number on one's thyroid, and we're ingesting way too much soy in processed foods anyway. Don't be fooled by the soy industry's claims about how wonderful soy is for you; it's fine, in moderation, but I don't trust the soy industry any more than I do the pharmaceutical industry to tell me what's good for me.)

[thegreatwildebeest]

45. Bottled water is not any cleaner...

Bottled water regulations are weaker than the EPA's. The FDA has control over bottled water regulations, and they are uniformally weaker than the EPA's, and they don't have nearly as much staff on the case than the EPA does on water systems. I don't like fluridated water either, and the recent lapses in tap water are disturbing. But bottled water is just as bad, if not worse (National Resource Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp). Also switching from dairy milk to rice milk is just a matter of choosing ones contaminent over another. Unless the rice is grown organically, the stuff is laced with pesticides.

Also, in the bitter end, your hurting yourself in the long run with bottled water. The emissions from producing the plastic to house the water, and the FURTHER emissions of getting it to the store will eventually in the long run counteract whatever health benefit you currently receive from drinking the bottled water. This is not including the fact that many water bottlers abuse and overproduce from the springs and aquifers they get the water from, hurting the local communities around them and wreaking environmental destruction.

The water problem is complicated, but I find resorting to bottled water is not a viable solution nor one that in the long run benefits anyone.

[SmokingJacket]

64. Bottled water comes from tap water, most of the time.

There's certainly perchlorate in at least some bottled water.

Lucky for me we don't have fluoride in our tap water -- and neither of my kids has ever had a cavity, either.

But I use a filter because the water's overchlorinated, otherwise it's like drinking pool water. Exactly like.

RECYCLE THE PLASTIC BOTTLES!! At the very least.

[REP]

14. Tap Water Is Bad for the Immunocompromised

My kidneys are failing and my immune system is shot to hell, and I have been told by my doctor (an MD, not some holistic scammer) not to drink tap water as I probably can't handle the bacterial load or the MTBE.

[AnnInLa]

15. An interesting idea that I've been reading alot recently

is that private companies are now eying our municipal water systems in their latest quest to privatize all utilities, and to privatize everything.

Our municipal water systems have become old, less safe, and less able to supply safe water to ever-increasing populations. Municipalities do not have the money for upgrading and modernization....and the public is not anxious to have their taxes increased to pay for it. So, look for private companies to swoop down and offer to take over from the municipalities our water supply. Then look for our payments for this necessity of life to double, triple...more in line with electricity payments.

Also...."terra" will be used to convince voters/municipalities that private companies can better pay for security of the water systems.

[shelley806]

63. Oh how sad...but I imagine you are right. This is human nature, right?

Takes advantage of even WATER; an essential for life.

[Squatch]

16. It's a sham.

Many of the bottled water producers bottle their water from the local municipality's water supply.

The only bottled water I buy is distilled.

[MissB]

17. Yep.

Bottled water doesn't have to meet the same strict federal drinking water standards that public water systems do.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. The Chicago Tribune Did A Story About A Study. . .

. . .of bottled water. I'm not sure, but i want to say it was 5 years ago.

The story was a dual expose' between the Trib and WGN. WGN actually had hidden camera video of bottles, from 24 ounce to 3 gallon, being filled directly from a tap, with nothing more than a 60 micron filter to take out VISIBLE specks.

The study was done by one of the local universities (DePaul or Loyola? I forget.) The results showed the tap water contains no discernable difference in any minerals, contaminants, or biologicals for 25 cities within the Chicago sphere of influence. The conclusion, at that time, was that bottled water was a complete rip-off.

If you have Lexis/Nexis (which i don't), you should be able to find it in their archives.
The Professor

[MissB]

24. Sadly, I don't have Lexis/Nexis

but the study doesn't surprise me at all.

I used to be in the drinking water industry on the regulatory side. Several of the larger water systems that I visited over my years on the job got into the bottled water business (i.e.- they started bottling their system's water.) They noted that many of their customers were turning to bottled water instead of tap water. I can't say I blame them for jumping on the bandwagon.

If I had a compromised immune system, I'd probably be boiling my water. I just don't know if I could trust bottled water.

[Norquist Nemesis]

36. How odd...I noticed the 'filter your own' water machine

at the grocery store yesterday. I don't normally pay attention at that section, but for some reason it caught my eye. For 49cents, you can run your own water through for filtering.

I commented to my husband that it's probably a scam. How does one actually know that the filter is in good order, or that there a filter even exists in the machine? He said he thought what it was worse that by having such machines implies you should filter your drinking water...that tap water is bad for you. He also said he remembered years ago going with his dad to fill up jugs and joking to him that it was probably coming from a water pipe off the street! LOL! Guess he was right about that.

[Mizmoon]

18. Because people all over Long Island get odd cancers

and no one knows why ...

[eissa]

54. Same here in Central CA

Know an oncologist down in UCLA who said they get so many cancer cases from CA's central valley. We stopped drinking tap water over 15 years ago after years of swallowing warm water that looked liked skim milk :puke:

I reuse my recycled plastic bottled water, which I know is not good either because of (1) the plastic, and (2) backwash. I try to replace the bottle every week, so it's not so bad.

[Xithras]

60. Central valley groundwater is a toxic stew.

It's the result of decades upon decades of fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide usage in a farming region with a stagnant water table. Pesticides and herbicides that leaked into the aquifer in the 1930's is still down there. Most cities deal with these chemicals by injecting EVEN MORE chemicals into the water system to counteract them, and by dumping gobs of chlorine into the pipes to mask their flavor. In some parts of the valley (including, unfortunately, where I live) there are also dangerous amounts of naturally occurring fluorine and uranium in the water.

I spent about $1500 on a water filtration system for my house so I wouldn't have to worry about it, but I still drink bottled water whenever I'm out. I know that bottled water isn't exactly pure, but it's not the cancer causing waste that flows out of our taps.

[ohio_liberal]

19. I got a kick out of this

Our local United Dairy bottles water that's sold in all the grocery stores. It's bottled city tap water. Says so right on the label.

[lectrobyte]

21. where I work, they took out the water coolers and now offer

with bottled water from the Coke machine. It's all about the money now. Once you can figure out who profits, you can start to understand why things happen.

[goclark]

23. Bottled water is a pain and $$ but

It is worth into me.

I do appreciate your responses however. I learned a lot.

I HATE to drink water. If I had to get 6 glasses of water I would leave them all around and never finish one.

I MUST have 6 or more glasses per day. It makes me feel so much better. It helps me with my weight problems too.

I label my water bottles 1,2,3 and date them.
I won't go to bed until I finish one.

Glad to learn about the need to finish the bottle, that makes since. Sometimes I do drink 1/2 and leave the rest until later in the day. NOT a good idea from what I've read here.
Thanks for the post!

[Liberal In Texas]

22. We have a steam water distiller. We refill plastic bottles with distilled

water. I carry one with me in the car and one in a bag when I have a job.

I got mine at Sears probably around 10 years ago. You can get them at many other places as well (just google) as cheap as $99, and they'll last forever.

Once you start drinking distilled water (odorless, colorless, tasteless) you'll find it hard to drink tap water or even regular bottled water.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. Distilled Water?

That can be VERY unhealthy. It can screw up the electrolyte balance of the system by causing additional blood ions (sodium, calcium, potassium) to diffuse INTO the urinary tract and be expelled from the body.
The Professor

[Squatch]

33. Just eat a balanced diet...

It's when people remove all fats, carbohydrates, salt, etc. AND drink distilled water (lots) that it can become a problem.

[Liberal In Texas]

37. I'll take my chances. n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Whatever. Just Don't Want You To Hurt Yourself.

The Professor

[shelley806]

65. Oh Please!!!!! VERY UNHEALTHY to drink distilled water? Only

if you drink excessive amounts can it cause hypotonicity..

[Iris]

34. When you distill a gallon of water, do you get a gallon in return?

Just curious b/c I've heard these things can use twice as much water in order to get enough to drink.

[Liberal In Texas]

35. One gallon of tap water yields one gallon of distilled water.

What is amazing to see is the brown residue left after distilling only ONE gallon of water.

[Iris]

38. Oh, God. I don't wanna know!

Thanks for the info., though!

[youthere]

25. We have a horrible rust problem with our well.

We have a softener and a whole house filter (don't know what the appropriate term is for it) and you can taste the rust-so we buy water for drinking and cooking.

[Telly Savalas]

26. It's a lot healthier than bottled Pepsi.

[Iris]

27. Yep. I think it's an alternative to soft drinks for a lot of people

when they are out and about.

But not everyone. Some people just drink it instead of tap water. So, the bottles are becoming a problem.

[raccoon]

29. I filter all mine at the house and take my insulated water jug

with me just about everywhere.

"have the corporations convinced people that for whatever reason bottled water is better and worth paying extra for ? it looks that way to me."

Looks that way to me too.

[BiggJawn]

30. Because I can't get fizzy water from my tap.

I drink fizzy water. I like grapefruit-flavoured Faygo, no sweeteners, and I also drink Apolonaris and Gerolsteiner.

If I could carbonate my tap water, I'd drink it, because it has more "dissolved solids" than any of the bottled ones...

[in_cog_ni_to]

31. I stopped drinking tap water 20 years ago.

I use to live in a rural area that had a very high water table which meant that it flooded easily and if any dangerous chemicals were ever dumped somewhere nearby, they would make it into our water. I use to see these semi trucks drive by on a weekly basis LOADED with big drums of SOMETHING :scared: so I followed them one day and found they had dumped and buried the drums in a secluded area and I decided at that point, no more tap water for me. The drums were unmarked and I had no clue what was in them, BUT I wasn't about to drink the water that came out of our faucet and find out someday that they were full of some toxic agent.

The water there was extremely rusty and stained everything and tasted HORRIBLE! I couldn't own any WHITE clothing because it would end up ORANGE, I kid you not. We had a water softener and you could always tell when the salt ran out because the bath water or dish water was orange. :puke: I wasn't about to drink that crap, softened or not. When you took a shower, you didn't 'feel' clean. The water left a very filmy, dry feeling on the skin. :( We have city water where we live now, but I can't stand the taste of it. It's really gross. I don't trust that there's not some cancer causing agent in that water either. The very thought of drinking tap water grosses me out.

Basically, it comes down to not trusting corporations to not pollute the water and air...I don't trust them. We have water from Hinckley and Schmitt with a water cooler. My son has never drunk tap water. When he has to drink it at other people's houses, he HATES it.

We drink LOTS of water instead of pop.

[gauguin57]

32. Ask General Jack D. Ripper why.

"I can no longer sit back and allow ... the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids... "
-- Gen. Jack D. Ripper, "Dr. Strangelove."

My tap water is OK, but sometimes tastes a little bit like a swimming pool. So, I use a Brita pitcher, and fill my little bottles from it. Hopefully, it's filtering out the international communist conspiracy.

[LSK]

39. i reuse the bottles with tap water and keep them in the fridge

Those plastic bottles come in handy for being on the go.

[info being]

41. Then you also drink toxins as the bottle decays

My Chiropractor told me about this...toxins in the plastic slowly break down. These bottles were designed for one-time use.

[cheezus]

43. LOL

<b>My Chiropractor told me about this...</b>

[thegreatwildebeest]

55. It's actually somewhat true...

The Sierra Club has said that its unknown as to whether or not the plastic can "leech" into the water. That said, worrying about it is kind of like worrying about anti-persperaints giving you cancer and then jumping into a car in order to go get McDonald's. Avoiding certain things piecemeal is not the way to go.

[Bleacher Creature]

42. Lewis Black had the best line when he said that bottled water

is manufactured "by a couple in Pittsburgh sitting in a bathtub."

[Shakespeare]

56. Yup, and George Carlin is runner-up with this comment:

(regarding people who carry bottles of water with them everywhere) "When did we, as a society, become collectively dehydrated?"

[bikebloke]

46. A filter on the faucet

I drink lots of water, with my bike being my car. If I bought bottled water, I'd go broke. The filter works fine. Anyway, I like to swallow unfiltered tap water from time to time just to keep the microbes updated. And since I'm a world traveller, I'm sure I've ingested all sorts of critters through my roamings.

The whole bottled water deal is another ruse to fleece the knee jerk consumerists.

[jane_pippin]

47. We had a cryptosporidium issue here about ten years ago...

Some people with weak immune systems died, others were very sick. School was cancelled for a few days, if I recall correctly. Ever since then we've had Brita filtered tap water or bottled water in our house.

[MissB]

50. Welllllll.....

the Britta filter isn't going to do diddly against another outbreak of Crypto. (I take it you're near Milwaukee, Wisconsin? We always used that one as an example during training for water system operators.)

That said, I use a Britta filter. It doesn't do much, but I like having cold water in the fridge. I just don't expect it to take out things like Cryptosporidium. :D

[jane_pippin]

51. Great. Now I have to boil all my water.

Kidding.

Yeah, near Milwaukee at the time. That was a treat. I actually don't drink a ton of water anyway and was one of the few people I knew who didn't get sick so it was like a free vacation.

So the Britta is pretty well useless, eh? In that case, I use because I want to keep delicious cold water in the fridge.

I think we use it because it makes us feel like we're doing something about a problem we have no control over. Kind of like our own personal psych-out for peace of mind. I mean, really, if it's gonna kill us, it's gonna kill us. What can you do? :)

[sintax]

49. Bottled Water, Cell Phones and the Narcissistic Consumer

Nothing can be trusted unless you buy it.

Fashion
Elitism

Everyone else is doing it why can't I?


All plastic containers are carcinogenic.

[Blue_Tires]

52. LOL.....i never miss a chance to post this bit of dialogue:

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?

General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.

General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

[LittleClarkie]

57. Our water is indeed terrible

but we have a filtration system in our building. I fill up one bottle over and over. Maybe that's what others do as well.

Don't forget that people are more fitness concious now, and they want their water to be portable so they'll get in that 8 glasses. Otherwise you'd see soda cans instead.

At least it's all recyclable.

[greendog]

58. The crazy thing is how far bottled water travels before...

...it gets to you.

I used to be a long haul trucker. Sometimes I hauled bottled water. It was kind of mind boggling.

The "spring water" would be pumped from a gravel pit, run through a filter, put in a bottle, and shipped thousands of miles. You can find water from Ontario and Quebec in 48 states. Nothing special about it, just water.

There was a place in Oklahoma where the water tasted horrid. It was absolutely undrinkable. The coffee made with it was undrinkable. A local bottling plant went to the trouble of filtering out the bad taste and selling it as bottled water. I hauled the stuff 600 miles.

Most towns have an existing facility (the local cola plant) that is capable of producing enough bottled water for the local population. Yet we get to choose between a dozen different "brands" from all over the country.

Whenever I here someone singing the praises of capitalism, especially it's supposed efficiency, I start telling bottled water stories.

[shelley806]

59. I have thought this for YEARS!! Someone is making a lot of money

on people's fears, but hey, what's new? i CAN'T IMAGINE WHY PEOPLE WOULD PAY FOR WATER IN A COMMUNITY WHERE THE WATER IS (oops CAPS) good; water has no calories, and is of no nutritional value in terms of vitamins etc...I can understand paying for even Diet Coke (which truly has no nutritional value) more than I can understand paying for water in an area where it's not needed. But, I see it every day.

[LeftyMom]

61. Well, the tap water here

smells like public pool water, it's so chlorinated. Except when it smells a bit swampy. In either case, it's gross. I won't even cook with it, because even if it's technicly safe it's still nasty.

I used to use a filter and while that worked fine it was a major hassle, so now I buy water instead and get better filtration.

[B Calm]

62. Call me conservative, but I'll be damn if I will throw away money

on a little plastic bottle of water..

[Sannum]

66. I drink bottled water because the water from my tap is white.

I don't even want to know what is going on with it. It killed a plant. I don't even let my cat drink tap water. He gets sick too.

[left hand man]

67. My late brother drank bottled water until

He was on hold on the phone one day and was reading the label on the bottle he was drinking. He worked in Atlanta and the water was listed as coming from "The city of Mableton municipal water supply."(A suburb in north Atlanta).He could get the same thing from the cooler in the hall!
RIP R.S.R 12.07.2005

[anarchy1999]

68. Just don't drink flouridated water. It is pure poison.

Links later. Or just go google it. Flouride.

Just skip over the chlorine part.

Umm yes, our city governments' taking care of us. We have the "purest" water to be found.

Hail Mary!

[BeTheChange]

69. Do you know of a good filter that gets rid of flouride?

I cant find anything cheaper then a few hundred bucks.

[anarchy1999]

72. I'm sorry, I do not. Getting good water costs alot.

But on the flip side it makes all the difference in the world as to how you start to feel.

Get a water that is enriched with oxygen.

North Texas call RainFresh. 972-271-2060

We don't work for them, we just drink it and love it.

[madmom]

70. Our water has so much chlorine in it ....

it smells like bleach, dries the skin out ,and taste like shit. My daughter works with foreign students and they say it's like drinking from a swimming pool. To buy filters to keep it clean would be much more expensive than buying bottled water.

[ole_evil_eye]

71. it tastes better

the tap water here always left a funny aftertaste in my mouth

Bottled water just tastes alot better and is usually cleaner than the shit that comes out of my faucet