Water, water everywhere…but not a drop to drink (aka: tap vs. bottled water)
We were recently asked to weigh-in on this question. Recently one of our favorite reference materials, The Green Guide, reported the following about the very expensive, and unenvironmentally-friendly, habit of drinking bottled water:
“Thanks to the designer-water trend, Americans pay up to 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than for regular tap. ‘Maybe we’ve given in to the hype that it comes from pristine springs and lakes,’ muses Wendy Gordon, 50, publisher of The Green Guide…’But sometimes it’s just bottled tap water.’ Aquafina, for instance, contains water from 16 different municipal water supplies, Gordon explains, ‘including ones in Detroit, Fresno, and other cities. So why not bring your own?’ Gordon chooses to sip from her favorite reusable bottle, a sleek stainless-steel container from Klean Kanteen.
Not only is bottled water expensive, but think of all the greenhouse gases being expelled transporting water all over the world and in the manufacturing and packaging of the bottles. The best solution is as The Green Guide points out, to carry a reusable water bottle. We think the best reusable bottle are the Klean Kanteen bottles that Green and Greener carries. Klean Kanteen bottles are made out of stainless steel and won’t give your drinks a bad taste or leach potentially toxic substances which drinking out of polycarbonate and alumunimum bottles may do. Our 12 ounce bottle is perfect for small hands or throwing in a purse, the larger 18 ounce bottle is great for all day or work outs.
But is tap water safe????
The NRDC regularly issues a report called “What’s On Tap” about drinking water in American cities. The last one was issued in 2002 for Los Angeles. You can read the report here: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/pdf/la.pdf . Los Angeles drinking water has regularly been rated as “fair” and while not as pure as we’d probably all like it’s considered safe for drinking.
We personally drink only filtered LA tap water. Also, a great number of the bottled waters out there also come from tap water so you aren’t necessarily getting cleaner water by drinking them. Also tap water has to meet more stringent standards than bottled water and is tested more
often. Here is an NRDC report on bottled water: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp
Also, see this recent NY Times editorial singing the praises of tap water.
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