I live on the west coast US in Los Angeles and the water is supplied by the LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power). I don’t use bottled water or any filtering device at all. I drink water straight out of my tap faucet every day. My coworkers who live in the same area as me only drink bottled water. They say I am consuming toxic amounts of bacteria and poison (like arsenic) by drinking tap water. I say it is safe and the benefits of saving money outweigh the health costs. I agree that bottled water is cleaner and taste better, but I choose to drink tap water because it is free, but is it really dangerous?
Nah, that’s bullshit. Bacteria is not generally a problem unless the tap water is coming from an old-fashioned shallow well (close to the surface), and those wells have been outlawed in most areas for years (modern wells are much deeper, down where bacteria generally doesn’t grow). Non-living toxins such as arsenic are a problem only in some unusual areas, i.e., places where there is a naturally high level of arsenic in the soil. Although pollution and toxic waste contamination is often cited as a problem with tap water, many bottled water companies don’t make much of an effort to monitor their water, either; you really don’t know what your getting. Plus, studies have shown that “big city” water often tastes better than bottled water in blind taste tests, since urban water treatments can afford to use the latest and greatest in water treatment technology. If memory serves, Consumer Reports did a taste test (10 years ago?) showing the best water to be NY City tap water; supposedly, subsequent tests showed that some other big cities had excellent tap water as well. Dunno about LA…
Art
Lots of bottled water is tap water.
Furthermore, you can rest assured that municipal water systems are under the intense scrutiny of the Environmental Protection Agency, which does not have jurisdiction over the bottled water industry.
That first world nations can provide free water supplies to their urban citizens of a purity that most humans throughout most of human history could only dream of is a testament to human intelligence.
That some humans can nonetheless convince other humans provided with pure free water to pay for bottled water of dubious origin is a testament to human ingenuity and human idiocy at one and the same time.
Download the LADWP Water Quality Reports for 2002 here. There are four different districts. I don’t know which one you’re in, but just taking Central and East LA as an example, it looks like there were an average of 0.28% Coliform Bacterial positive samples, and an average of 3.5 micrograms/Liter of arsenic.
The MCL’s (maximum contaminant levels) for Coliform and arsenic in the EPA’s drinking water standards are 5.0% and 10 micrograms/Liter, respectively. So, they seem to be well within the limits.
If you’re really interested, you should be able to take a sample of your tap water to the county for an analysis, which should either be free or really cheap.
As others have stated lots of bottled water comes from municipal water supplies. Aquifina might have drawings of mountains on the label but the bottle never says it comes from any mountain spring. I think Dasani is another popular brand that also comes from municipal supplies.
So it is possible that your coworkers are drinking bottled water that comes from the same supply you drink out of.
Folks that drink nothing but bottled water are also missing out on a lot of trace minerals in tap water that is filtered out in bottled water. They also miss out on the benefits of floride if it is in the water too. This recent report on the SD home page explains some of the benefits of drinking tap water.
Some bottle water is not as pure as tap water. That was on one of the programs like 20/20, etc.
Where I lived before the water tasted bad but was ok to drink so I installed a carbon filer and Reverse Osmosis. The water had a salty taste and RO is the only system that will remove that taste.
Where I live now the water has a slight taste so I installed a carbon filter that removes the taste.
The general public has gone pollution / environment crazy. I worked in the Chemical industrial for 30 years… everything we made including the raw materials were classified by EPA as hazardous or would kill rats (if they consumed it)… I’m still in perfect health! So much of what you hear is BS!
There was a great “Penn And Teller: Bullsh*t” episode about bottled water. Not only is the tap water as safe or even safer than bottled, but they had blind taste tests and most preferred New York City tap water over the bottled water.
Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype? from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The entire report is worth a read, but settle for the Executive Summary while you take another swig from the tap.
Dasani is made by Coca Cola.
They use the same factories that make the Coke and other products.
Municipal water goes in one end, goes through some purification steps and then some is bottled as Dasani, and some has the syrup added and is bottled as Coca Cola, or Sprite or Diet Coke, or whatever.
I especially like the idea that the most expensive product Coke sells is the one where they left out ALL the ingredients except the filler.
Americans (at least in bulk) are STUPID.
Christopher Wanjek has a whole chapter (“Water, Water Everywhere: Bottled Water vs. Tap Water.”) about this in his excellent book Bad Medicine. The upshot is that tap water from municipal water districts is much more stringently regulated for all sorts of safety concerns than is bottled water. Municipal water supplies are regulated by the EPA, bottled water by the FDA.
Bah! Humbug!
It’s obvious none of you ever got sick as hell from your tap water.
My entire family got very ill from Crypto. Now we won’t touch tap water except to wash/bathe.
We do get bottled spring water delivered to the house once a month, and it tastes much better than the bleach smelling slop that’s coming out of the faucet.
A simple inexpensive carbon filter will remove the bleach smell/taste and other taste in tap water.
Nope. Tried that. Wasn’t satisfied with the results. Still tasted like pool water.
Besides, no in home filter will block out crypto. I simply don’t trust my municipality to keep my water safe.
And we like the spring water…alot.
Duckster’s cite shows that most cities have to test for crypto and giardia, whereas bottled water producers do not. Mistakes happen, but I’d feel safer getting water from a source that was forced to test for it than one who can skip testing altogether.
Chlorine smell in water is simply a matter of being used to it. If you are, there’s no problem… simple as that. That chlorine smell should also be telling you that the water is disinfected as well. No chlorine = things could be living and breeding in there. But if you’re happy with your water source and trust them more than the city, so be it.
There was a TV program in the UK that compared bacteria levels in tap water and various bottled waters. They were counting numbers of bacteria per some volume (sorry, can’t remember how much). But I do remember that tap water had about 20, and the worst bottled water had about 80,000.
The only downside to tap water is that it tastes disgusting here (Atlanta), because of the high amounts of chlorine in it. Not as bad as Florida water, though.
Incompetent - as friedo alluded to, there are no standards or controls that make bottled water better than tap water. It’s all marketing.
As for bacteria - if the water was so unhealthy that even germs can’t live in it, would you really want to drink it? While there have been incidents of water borne illness in modern tap water, compared to the cholera epidemics of the 19th century (and moden 3rd world countries) these are small potatos (from a statistical viewpoint. Obviously pkbite’s personal suffering is not to be sneered at).
Bottled water is a triumph of marketing. Nothing else.
I fill up a water bottle with tap water everyday. Hasn’t made me sick, nor any of the millions of other people who do the same thing.