Do you still buy bottled water?

[derby378]

[BlooInBloo]

1. Never have, doubtful I ever will.

[derby378]

7. Can't remember the last time I did...

I bought a Sigg 1-liter bottle back in March. It goes everywhere I go, and I use it to hold water, fountain soft drinks, etc. One of these days, I need to figure up how many water bottles, styrofoam cups, and plastic cups I've saved so far - it might just break my heart.

[graywarrior]

2. No.

Water in northern NH is fantastic.

[TCJ70]

3. We bought a water filter for our faucet. So...other. n/t

[snacker]

5. Same here. n/t

[derby378]

8. Ditto! n/t

[W_HAMILTON]

4. Hmm

Well, I don't buy bottles of water, but I do buy the distilled water in the jugs at the grocery store.

Does that count?

[derby378]

9. The jugs are reuseable, so that's cool

I'm talking about the "use once, throw away" water bottles - even those "eco-friendly" Ozarka bottles that use less plastic, but use plastic nonetheless.

[Breeze54]

6. I never have bought it

unless I was out in my car and in desperate need of a drink of water but that has been rare.

My son did buy a case of bottled water a while back but I banned it from my house. He hasn't done it since.

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. Only in an airport

And I do my best to avoid flying.

I use a water filter at home.

[SteveM]

11. Quit buying years ago; I still re-fill ancient ones when hunting/fishing/camping (nt)

[havocmom]

12. In the 5 gallon returnable bottles, from a source I have actually seen/been to

Our tap is not safe to drink. Really, rated not fit for stock animals. We are a very small community with NO dept of health, so they get away with it.

And I do think the same conditions will be holding true for more and more local water systems as they become less than well sealed and costs to keep them in repair go up for struggling local governments. I sorta wonder that marketing bottled water (at ridiculous prices for what most of it actually is - just tap) is a prelude toward the day when water is either corporate delivered or your local water is unsafe due to inability to maintain the infrastructure that delivers it and removes the sewer water. As the delivery and removal pipes age and leak (both being under the same ground) you can kiss safe tap goodbye. They want you used to paying by the liter. You'll while less when your tap is shit.


edited for typo

[derby378]

15. It could still get worse - much worse

Check this out. I was stunned when I first learned about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_Water_Wars_of_2000

[Liberal In Texas]

17. We have pretty good tap water, but after distilling 1 gal., there is about a half ounce of brownish

yuck in the bottom of the distiller. Makes you think.

[hlthe2b]

13. Take a Sigg bottle with me using filtered H20.... rarely buy

bottled drinks of any kind, but certainly almost never, water.

[Liberal In Texas]

14. We distill our own water and refill plastic bottles.

It tastes better than water you buy or tap water.

[NCDem60]

42. I'm curious as to how you distill your water.

[bikebloke]

16. Never have.

I've been given a couple. Actually, my tap water having gone through a faucet filter tasted much better. Anyway, I drink too much water for it to be economically feasible.

What turned me off was what I'd seen on Corfu in the early 80's. There was a backpackers beach, Pelikas - I think - without potable water. So everybody was force to buy the big 2 litre bottles. In the end there were piles of plastic bottles that were eventually burned. I learned, and went with a reusable bottles since.

[derby378]

21. No potable water? WTF?

I'm not a snob about water bottles, though - if someone offers me a Dasani or Evian, I'll be grateful I've got something clean and refreshing to drink. But if anyone asks me about that Sigg bottle I carry with me, I'll be happy to tell them why I carry it and where they can get their own.

[bikebloke]

31. There was water, but it wasn't safe to drink.

I'm sure it's different now. Back then, everybody slept on the hill sides. An adventure. You can bet it's been built up and middle-class touristy now.

[LeftyMom]

18. No, I have a filter and a carry bottle. And a bottle with a filter built in I use for school.

The only time I buy bottled water anymore is when I fly, since I can't bring water with me. Wow, do airports ever overcharge, too.

[SmokingJacket]

19. How about "rarely"?

If I'm stuck somewhere and need something to drink, I'll buy bottled water over juice or soda. But if I can get tap water, I go for that.

I just have nightmares about the mountains of unrecycled bottles building up in our landfills.

[magellan]

20. We bought a water cooler

...because our local water company has been in the midst of correcting contaminants in the supply for three years now. On top of that our water is very hard and often smells like chlorine.

We use the 3-gallon bottles and refill them at the supermarket. One of the best investments we've made.

[Delphinus]

22. I have bottled water stored for emergencies.

Probably about ten jugs of it.

[no limit]

23. Yes, some times. But why all the hate about bottle water?

Why doesn't anyone mention cans?

[hendo]

40. Why all the hate?

1) for starters, approximately 1.5 million gallons of oil are used to make all of the bottles for bottled water alone, and that is before fuel for the transportation of those bottles is taken into account.

2)90 percent of water bottles are not recycled, ending up in landfills.

3)The growth in bottled water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers.

4)Two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.

5) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for tap water are more stringent than the Food and Drug Administration’s standards for bottled water, so, tap water is almost always just as safe as, if not safer than, bottled.


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/reasons_to_ditch_bottled_water.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/bottled_water_w.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/pablo_calculate.php

Buy a filter, and a good reusable bottle, not only will it save you money but it will also help the environment.


Why not wrap it up with a quote from Garrison Keillor, he is far more eloquent than I.

" I am sorry, Evian and San Pellegrino and Dasani and all the other bottled waters out there—Aqua Velva, Wells Fargo, Muddy Waters, Joan Rivers, Jerry Springer, whatever—but the current campaign against paying good money for bottled water when tap water is perfectly good (and very likely purer) is so sensible on the face of it that I am now done with you.

Fini. Kaput. Ausgeschlossen. No more designer water. Water is water. If you want lemon flavoring, add a slice of lemon. You want bubbles, stick a straw in it and blow.

My father, a true conservative, would have smiled on this. All his life he resisted the attempts of big corporations to gouge him by selling him stuff he didn’t need and so he was not a consumer of high-priced water, anymore than he would’ve purchased bottles of French air or Italian soil.

No, San Pellegrino and Perrier got rich off the pretensions of liberal wastrels like moi who thought it set us apart from the unlettered masses. We ordered it in restaurants for the same reason we read books we don’t like and go to operas we don’t understand - we say to the waiter, ”Perrier,” to give a continental touch to our macaroni and cheese.

Enough. Man is capable of reform once presented with the facts, and the fact is that bottling water and shipping it is a big waste of fuel, so stop already. The water that comes to your house through a pipe is good enough, and maybe better."

[no limit]

44. You misunderstood me

I didn't say that the hate against bottled water wasn't justified. I am simply asking why is the hate isolated to bottled water when things like cans, paper plates, grocery bags, etc, etc, and etc are just as bad?

[hendo]

55. Oh, sorry about that

As far as your list there, I only use cans. However, there aren't as many options for getting away from tin and aluminum cans. I wish there was a way to ween off of cans but at least in the case of soda, the only other option is a plastic bottle, and that is as bad if not worse.

I do agree though that people should make a conscious effort to stop using paper plates and grocery bags. It is pretty hard to get away from paper plates though, and the plastic plates that are in the same aisle in the grocery store aren't reusable.

Grocery bags are another matter all together. When most people go shopping it is a conscious choice to go to the store. Re-usable bags are now sold in most stores, and they are usually fairly inexpensive. To offset the cost of a new canvas or other reusable grocery bag most grocery stores, at least here in Colorado give you $0.05 - $0.10 back for every reusable bag you bring in.

[no limit]

65. No problem at all

I totally agree with everything other than the paper plates argument. Why do you need paper plates when you can use regular ceramic ones?

I buy bottled water at times for work. At home I have a reusable filter which I use for all my water, I can't imagine people using bottled water at home.

Albertson's has reusable grocery bags for around $1 a pop. And I'm glad that I see a lot of people actually using them no a days. I think if we all made a bigger issue out of this we could get most people to use reusable bags.

So my point is simply that as big of a problem as bottles are we have plenty of other problems we should also be concentrating on.

[hendo]

73. ceramic plates are hard to take to a picnic though n/t

[flvegan]

24. Yes, but only for storm preparedness.

I buy them in the gallon jugs and keep 30 or so of them just in case (have to think of the dogs).

[murray hill farm]

25. I cannot drink the tap water where I live....

so I do buy the large 5 gals of water for drinking..and those bottles are recycled....so, I do not feel as bad about that use. I do not use the small waterr bottles. Looking forward to once again..hopefully in a year or so, to be living in the country and drinking well water of my own.

[clyrc]

26. The tap water where I live isn't really drinkable

we get water delivered twice a week. I do buy water in small bottles sometimes, because I live in the desert and it gets too hot too quickly and you have to have water sometimes.

[Vidar]

27. No.

[Dorian Gray]

28. If I am at a movie or something and I want water...

I will buy a bottle. But at home I drink straight from the tap.

[NEOhiodemocrat]

29. We refill milk jugs at a spring

have a well and live pretty close to a contaminated site, so lug in our drinking water.

[hendo]

30. nope

I just use my Nalgene.

[Coexist]

32. I used to - then the health thing, then the commercials that made me feel guilty

"30 minutes on the treadmill, a lifetime in the garbage dump" and I went and bought some of those non-leaching Eddie Bauer ones, fill them and leave them in the fridge for the kids to bring to sports, or for that car ride. Its actually much cheaper and not that hard to keep up with

[texas1928]

33. I carry an insulated water jug, that I fill with ice and my office has a filtered water tap.

So I don't buy bottles.

[annonymous]

34. I use a Brita water pitcher

The only time I buy bottled water is when I am on vacation.

[NightWatcher]

35. I use a Brita pitcher and a Camelbak bottle (now BPA free)

[demmiblue]

36. Another Brita user.

I refill my plastic bottles and store them in the fridge and freezer.

[timtom]

37. Never have

we have faucet filters to lessen the chlorine taste. I fill up a glass and stick it in the freezer until cold then transfer to fridge and drink as needed.

When out, I drink out of fountains.

[AlCzervik]

38. no, there is a water filter for my fridge.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

39. yes, i am out and have forgotten to carry my own water. happens about 5 times a year

[fishwax]

41. sometimes, mostly while traveling

I use a refillable water bottle most of the time, because I drink a lot of water. On road trips or while driving around town, though, I sometimes buy bottled water because I prefer it to bottled soda.

[dysfunctional press]

43. never have, never will.

when we lived in chicago, the tap water was fantastic. now that we live farther out and have our own well, we've installed a reverse-osmosis filter system that gives us bottle-quality water out of the tap.

[Lance_Boyle]

59. Heh - too bad RO wastes more water than it produces

Unless you capture the RO filter's waste stream for uses like toilet flushes and plant watering, you're wasting well over half the water pumped from your well.

[blondeatlast]

64. Not necessarily, see post 49. Ours works like a charm. nt

[dysfunctional press]

70. ours is a zero-waste system.

next...

[mloutre]

45. I buy spring water in bulk and refill my portable bottles

Best of both worlds, as it were.

Have been refilling the same two 2.5 gallon water jugs at a local vendor site for the last year, decant as needed for portability purposes.

Tap water here is fine, but spring water tastes better, so that's what I do.

I will *not*, however, destroy the environment by buying up and disposing hundreds of half-liter water bottles every few months. That is just teh stoopid.

[geek_sabre]

46. We don't have a distiller in our lab

and doing it the old fashioned way is not very time effective.. So I buy lots for school.

Still buy bottled for myself on occasion, though we have a filter.

[pansypoo53219]

47. where's the HELL NO! option?

milwaukee has awesome tap water. nice and cold in winter.

i find i can taste plastic. i try to put my travel liquids in glass. tho do reuse milk gallons.

[Midlodemocrat]

48. Yes. For kids' lunches as well as for emergencies.

4 cases sitting in the garage as we speak. And, I DO recycle them, as does the school.

[Lance_Boyle]

60. The school does not have water fountains or cups?

Curious as to why you'd need to ship water to the school...

[Midlodemocrat]

66. No cups unless you buy soda and my kids don't like soda.

They take one bottle and drink from it the whole day.

[blondeatlast]

49. No. We recently got a zero-waste reverse osmosis system and I LOVE it.

If anyone is interested, it's available at Costoo.

http://www.wattspremier.com/sdwa/pou-zerowaste.htm

Well worth the minor investment.

[lonestarnot]

50. Never did buy that crap.

Prefer to drink from the toilet.

[Indenturedebtor]

51. Only when in countries where the water has parasites

Other than that it's so rare as to be almost never. Such a waste that stuff is. I have a good filter on my tap and that's good enough for me. That's mostly where the bottled water comes from anyways.

[defendandprotect]

52. I gave it up but then had to start buying it again because our water went downhill here ---

followed now by a long period of its smelling like chlorine ---

[damntexdem]

53. Well, as all the time as needed.

I reuse each bottle until I need to grab a new one -- most often, because I've finished the water in the bottle and I'm not where I can refill it. So I keep a supply of bottled water in my car and grab a new bottle when I need. And I recycle all of the bottles -- there is good recycling here.

And summer tap water here tastes and smells horrible. I replenish at home from the water filtered by my fridge.

[chaska]

54. Where is the 'Never' option? Demand the return of the public drinking fountain/

[Beaverhausen]

56. Living in an earthquake region makes it necessary

I now have a brita filter, but I still keep some bottled around for the day the big one hits. :scared:

[krabigirl]

68. Yep.

[RebelOne]

57. I use a Brita pitcher at home that filters my water.

I even filter my dogs' water. At the office the water comes from a refrigerator tap that is filtered.

[bean fidhleir]

58. I don't drink pop, but I occasionally (2-3X/yr) buy lime fizzy water as a treat

The rest of the time I drink tap, put up in old Poland Springs liter bottles and frozen so that I always have icewater.

[Fox Mulder]

61. Unfortunately.

I'm weaning myself off it. It's hard to drink well water in the middle of the country.

[RedEarth]

62. Never have...I've always thought it was wasteful

[MasonJar]

63. Now that I have recently found out that it is dangerous to reuse the

bottles and that only a small percentage are recycled, I have given up bottled water.

[krabigirl]

67. I voted other. I don't buy it anymore (used Brita filter and SIGGs), but...

I did buy some for emergency storage, in case of earthquakes. So, I did buy some jugs of bottled water recently. :)

[Iggo]

69. Yep, all the time....(n/t)

[RamboLiberal]

71. I have a bunch of Camelbak BPA free bottles

I carry tap or polar water(from office) in. But I will occasionally buy a bottle water if needed.

[FloridaJudy]

72. Only the fizzy stuff

Like seltzer or Perrier as a special treat every now and then. Otherwise I just refill mine from the tap.