Why drink bottled water?

I don't know how accurate this is but recent research has shown that the second most popular hand held "accessory" is a bottle of water, the first being a mobile phone.

After reading this I became more aware and started looking and sure enough there were joggers, walkers and people just strolling about the streets of London with there little bottles, mainly the half litre size and mainly the type with the none spill drinking valve and what was slightly surprising to me was that it was mostly young people! So they are either more aware of the health issues of drinking more water or it has become the thing to do, a trend or even a fashion statement

Whatever the reasons that people are buying and drinking bottled water , it is seen as one of the largest growing areas of non alcoholic drinks on the market and that is why international companies like coca-cola, Schweppes,Nestle's and others have turned to bottled water during the last few years.

With market analyst predicting continued growth during the next ten years bottled water will continue to be a huge problem for dwindling land fill sites as the vast majority was in plastic bottles, last year sales was over 380 million and growing fast, leaving somewhere between 350 to 420 million bottles to be disposed of in the UK alone. In 1998 just 900 million bottles were sold and by 2002 that had grown to 200 million and with growth predicted to exceed 3000 million in the next five years....

So what happens to all of these bottles? most of them are transported to our rapidly dwindling land fill sites where they will take up to a thousand years before the decompose leaving their chemical residues to contaminate the soil. A small amount are sorted out and recycled, but it is a very expensive operation and some are even made into rolls of insulation similar to fibreglass lagging.

There are many reports that suggest that "most" people when test could not tell the difference between bottled water and tap water, but I suppose that really depends on how "loaded" the surveys are as mostly they are done by television companies who seem to want to "prove a point" in favour of tap water.Give them some of my bad tasting, chlorine infested water and test it against a bottle of Highland Springs water and there would no definitely be a very different outcome, it just depends on how and by whom the test is done.

I would never dream of drinking tap water at a restaurant (even if it's free) and always opt for bottled water, now that's not always good water, as with all things there is good and bad, but it is always a better choice than the undrinkable jugs of chlorine flavoured water some of my friends choose!

So if you want good, healthy and great tasting water what can you do?

The best thing to do is to use your tap water for washing and bathing in and any of the other things that it is invaluable for, and either buy bottled water and help in the waste of even more fossil fuels (yes, plastic bottles are made from oil) and help to create more greenhouse gas by transporting it all over the world, and then to help to fill our land fill sites! or you can choose the best and most Eco friendly way to give your self high quality drinking water in your own home - Filter and purify what you already pay for, your tap water.

Your "general purpose" tap water is amongst the safest water there is world wide wide, yet it is not 100% safe (perhaps nothing is) with high levels of chlorine being added to it to keep it free of most diseases and problems it just becomes tainted with chemicals and has bad taste, remove these elements at source (your kitchen tap) and you have all of the benefits of the work that your water supply company do and all of the benefits that a simple drinking water filter system can bring to you, great tasting sparkling clear and fresh water, on tap 24/7 and at a fraction of the cost of bottled water.

Comments

[Nick]

I really enjoyed this article I wanted to point you in the direction of thinkoutsidethebottle.org Where there is a campaign working to curb bottled water and support public water. There is info, an online activist kit, and a pledge you can sign at http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org/campaign/think_outside_the_bottle_pledge?source=blogpl