Why Bottled Water is Bad for You and The Planet

Proverbs 5:15
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

The convenience of bottled water is a part of many people's lives nowadays. The amount of bottled water sold in the U.S. in 2011, 9.1 billion gallons, translates to 29.2 gallons of bottled water for each American. Drinking bottled water is an expensive habit, as it is estimated that bottled water is 240 to 10,000 times more expensive than tap water. Drinking bottled water is also costlier on the environment and human health.

There is some misconception out there that bottled water is healthier than tap water.  I am going to list reasons that will change your mind.  God created water and is was good....and then we started polluting it, processing it, and bottling it up....



What’s in That Bottle?
Cool names and labels depicting beautiful scenes have convinced us that the liquid is the purest drink around. But no one should think that bottled water is better regulated, better protected or safer than tap.
Yes, some bottled water comes from sparkling springs and other pristine sources. But most of it comes from a municipal supply. The water is treated, purified and sold to us, often at a thousandfold increase in price. Most people are surprised to learn that they’re drinking glorified tap water, but bottlers aren’t required to list the source on the label.
This year Aquafina will begin stating on labels that its H2O comes from public water sources. And Nestlé Pure Life bottles will indicate whether the water comes from public, private or deep well sources. Dasani acknowledges on its website, but not on the label itself, that it draws from local water.
Are the Bottles Safe?Most bottled water comes in polyethylene terephthalate bottles, indicated by a number 1, PET or PETE on the bottle’s bottom.  When bottles are stored in hot or warm temperatures, the plastic will leach chemicals into the water.
Antimony is a potentially toxic material used in making PET. The longer a bottle of water sits around (in a store, in your home), the more antimony it develops. High concentrations of antimony can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in polycarbonate (used to make watercooler jugs, sport-water bottles and other hard plastics, but not PET), may cause neurological and behavioral problems in children and adult exposure to BPA likely affects the brain, the female reproductive system and the immune system.

Bottled Water’s Impact on the Planet
The potential health risks are important to understand, but bottled water also affects the health of the planet.
Bottled water is an increasingly growing business, and with that comes a whole lot of environmental impact that can be avoided by a turn of the faucet. While we struggle to cut down on our consumption of fossil fuels, bottled water increases them. Virgin petroleum is used to make PET, and the more bottles we use, the more virgin petroleum will be needed to create new bottles. Fossil fuels are burned to fill the bottles and dis-tribute them. Did you know you are paying more for a gallon of bottled water than you are for gas.  Everyone complains about the price of gas, but not the cost of bottled water made with fuels as well.  Not to mention that most bottles are not recycled and pollute our land and water ways.  They are very harmful to animals who get caught up in them and ingest them.

Some little tid bits of info:

American tap water is among the safest in the world.

As much as 40% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water anyway. Be sure to check the label and look for “from a municipal source” or “community water system”, which just means it is tap water.

By drinking tap water, you can avoid the fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, and other chemicals that studies have found in bottled water.

Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water. 

88% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States are not recycled. The Container Recycling Institute says that plastic water bottles are disposed of (not recycled) at the rate of 30 million a day.

Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water if left in the sun, heated up, or reused several times.

Production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet our demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil (not including transportation costs). That equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles in the U.S. each year. Around the world, bottling water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic…each year.

It can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself.

On a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.

The EPA sets much more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA does for the bottled stuff.

One out of 6 people in the world does not have safe drinking water, and about 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from bad water…that we know of. This while Americans spend about $16 billion a year on bottled water.

So what should you do? 

I personally filter my own tap water and use a glass to drink out of.  Most of you have seen me out with my BPA free water cups when I go out and about.  Occasionally, we will buy bottled water when we are out of town or traveling, we usually go to TJ Max of all places and buy the ones from the islands with the bottles without the harmful plastics(but that is very rare).  My suggestion to you is to limit bottled water and if you decide to drink it, RECYCLE the bottles!!!

My sister just bought a fridge that has a water filter that even filters out any pharmaceuticals that may be left in our tap water.  Its a GE Profile.


 In an effort to make their drinking water safer, some people use water filters at home. There are four main kinds:

• Activated carbon filters can remove certain organic contaminants that affect taste and odor. Some systems are also designed to remove chlorination byproducts, solvents, and pesticides, or certain metals such as copper or lead.
• Ion exchange units with activated alumina can remove minerals such as calcium and magnesium, which make water hard.
• Reverse osmosis units with carbon can remove nitrates and sodium as well as pesticides and petrochemicals.
• Distillation units boil water and condense the steam, creating distilled water.

No one system will remove all water contaminants.  You can look up your city's water report HERE to determine what kind of filter will work for you.  Most activated carbon filters are a good choice.  At least you can look up for city's report..who knows what is lurking in your bottle. (by the way, Kingsport's water report is really good!) find a link to that one here.