The Battle (or Bottle) Rages On!
It has become increasingly evident of late that buying bottled water at the local store is becoming taboo. It’s not just 
because it was a “fad” that is going out of style, but rather because consumers are not buying into the scare tactics and advertisements that the multibillion-dollar beverage industry have been touting. There have been numerous research studies conducted that have concluded that at least twenty five to forty five percent of all bottled water comes from filtered tap water – the exact same source of your own drinking water at home!
Not only are many water bottles filled with inexpensive and readily available tap water, even those that aren’t often fail in quality and taste tests when compared to tap water. One perfect example of this is what happened when Fiji water came up with a disparaging ad campaign against the city of Cleveland. Their advertisement stated “The label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland.” Needless to say, this angered many Clevelanders. In response to the ad, Cleveland’s public utilities director decided to test their city’s water against Fiji’s bottled water. The result? Fiji water contained 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter whereas Cleveland’s tap water contained no measurable trace of arsenic.
In addition, consumers are realizing that all that plastic has to go somewhere. It is an astounding statistic, but the U.S. population purchases more than half a billion bottles of water every week … let’s repeat … half a billion bottles of water EVERY WEEK! That is just crazy; in fact, it’s enough bottles to circle the globe five times. Multiply that by 52 weeks a year and that number becomes astronomical. It would be a little easier to swallow if we thought those bottles were being recycled, but only about twenty percent of them are slated for recycling. Even that figure comes into question since many are recycled into other cheap disposable plastic that eventually ends up in landfills as well.
So what can we conclude from all this? Well it’s evidently clear that we need to be drinking water, it is unquestionably the healthiest drinking choice we can make, however bottled water is not the answer. If there is concern about the quality of your tap water, installing a home water filtration system will provide your family with drinking water that is at least on par with, and in many cases, superior to anything you can buy in a bottle. Don’t get sucked in by misleading and sometimes downright false advertising, invest a few dollars into a reusable water bottle and turn on your tap for the healthy, great tasting water.
