Disturbing Facts About Drinking Bottled Water

This is kinda crazy but something I've suspected for some time. Big business takes advantage of ignorant customers in so many ways them just bottling tap water, slapping a drawing of a mountain range on it and calling it "Aquafina" shouldn't be too surprising. But that's not all that's wrong with bottled water. It just might be as bad as tap. But there's much more to the story than even what I found in this dude's MySpace blog post (here: http://urltea.com/1hqy). I found a whole slew of articles about the flaws of bottled water when I went to digg this blog post. Check them out here: http://digg.com/search?section=news&s=bottled+water

However, one thing I think the other articles don't mention that Michael does in his post is how plastic bottles will break down. Here's how he puts it:...the plastic from the bottled water actually breaks down toxically into the water you are drinking out of it.

Crazy, huh? Now, the reason I started drinking bottled water a lot and why I filter my tap water at home is because the water that comes out of my tap is actually visibly disgusting. Rusted pipes (I'm guessing) turn the water a vague orange--however, the coloring doesn't last long. I can run the tap a bit and it clears up--still, if that's what I can see, how do I know there isn't worse stuff that I can't see?

Now, there are alternatives to both plastic bottled water and tap. Michael, in his post, recommends buying bottled water in glass bottles or some kind of reusable container that you can refill at the source. My friend John has a bottle from http://Sigg.ch and I'll be following suit, myself. Those are some nice bottles. Then, there's the guy from Ipswitch, UK that Telegraph.co.uk reported on (here: http://urltea.com/1hr8) who invented a bottle that costs about $400 so I won't be picking up one of these until after I get the new iPod Touch--hey, a guy's got to have his priorities! But if healthy filtered drinking water is something you think is worth $400 right now, you can head over to LifeSaverSystems.com/buy.html and pick one up yourself. There is also the LifeStraw, but that's only available to institutions currently. Read more about it at LifeStraw.com.

So, there are things you can do and once again we see there is nothing that Big Business won't do to make a buck--even if it means completely misleading us and ultimately wasting our money.

But hey, they've got to make a living right?

MAN, do I hate that phrase!

Don't assassins and hitmen have to make a living, too?

Back on the topic, here are some more quick facts when it comes to bottled water:

1) Bottled water is extremely harmful to the environment, with more than 60 million bottles of water thrown away each day and 20 million barrels of oil used each year to make the plastic bottles containing the water. (source: http://urltea.com/1hqy)

2) Nearly 90 percent of water bottles are not recycled and wind up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose. (source: http://urltea.com/1hr2)

3) It takes 6.74 times the amount of water to produce a single kilogram bottle of Fiji bottled water. (source: http://urltea.com/1hr3)

4) NASA and the WHO (the World Health Organization, not the rock band) think that by 2050 4 billion people will face water shortages. (source: http://urltea.com/1hr5)

5) The FDA's standards for tap water are much more strict than their standards for bottled water. (source: http://urltea.com/1hr2)

I could go on. Obviously there is a problem. What is my solution? Until I can get my hands on one of those filter bottles, I'll be buying myself a steel bottle from Sigg and then refilling it with filtered tap water. The filter pitcher I use is from Britta, but I have no idea how effective it is. Once I can get one of those filter bottles, I'll definitely be using it as a middle man between my tap and my steel bottle.

What are you going to do? Hmmmm?

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