Tap Water Vs Bottled Water : Is Tap Water Cleaner Than Bottled Water ?
7 Reasons Why You Should Start Drinking From Tap Water Over Bottled Water
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Nothing is much healthier than drinking water. But, this is not true anymore.
In today’s modern world most of the people prefer drinking water from bottled water instead of tap. People are more health-conscious than ever before.
Majority of the people think that bottled water is much safer than normal tap water but as a matter of fact, it’s actually quite the opposite. Bottled water is not only bad for your health but also it is detrimental for our environment.
One should even avoid drinking from disposable or reusable bottles as much as possible. You should only consider drinking from it when there are absolutely no other alternatives.
Now, let’s see why drinking tap water is healthier than drinking water from a plastic bottle.
- In reality, bottled water actually comes from tap water
Just because the label on your bottle portrays crystal clear water coming from beautiful mountains or some oasis doesn’t mean water inside the bottle is fresh and actually comes from the mountain’s spring valley.
There are very few companies which actually use fresh water from ground or springs. Rest of the companies use tap water and radiates it with Ultraviolet light before selling it publicly.
Recently FDA has started regulating bottled water for E. Coli and has set up limits to allow a certain amount of bacteria. On the other hand, as per the standards set by EPA for tap water, it should not contain any amount of E. Coli or fecal Coliform bacteria.
- Plastic releases harmful chemicals in the water
You may know that when plastic is exposed to heat it releases harmful chemical compounds which are not only bad for our health but also pollutes our environment. Now, the same thing happens with the bottled water as well.
Whenever bottled water is exposed to heat or UV radiation outer layers of plastic breaks down which in result releases a chemical compound called BPA (Bisphenol). There are BPA-free plastic bottles available in the market as well, but even they are not safe to drink. Instead of BPA, they release BPS (Bisphenol S).
Both of these chemicals contaminate the water present in the plastic bottle. Exposure to these chemicals could lead to diseases like asthma, diabetes, blood clotting, heart-related diseases or cancer.
- There are no proven benefits of bottled water
According to NRDC reports, the safety of the water industry found no evidence that supports bottled water is superior to tap water after four-years of review.
Many people just talk about how bottled water is healthy compared to tap water just because companies advertise it with the purified word. Some even think bottled water is safer to drink because the label on the bottle shows crystal-clear mountain springs and pristine glaciers.
Due to such kind of misleading advertisements, people spend about 10000 times more on bottled water than they spend on tap water. So, you should really ask yourself whether it’s worth it for the environment and for your own good?
- We are wasting tones of natural water
Let’s leave water aside for some time and focus on the production of the plastic bottle.
For the production of plastic water bottles, water is the primary source. To fill a single bottle of water, it takes three times of the water than it can actually store.
That means nearly 3 gallons of water is being wasted just to fill a single bottle which is not even safe for drinking. Not to forget that water is the most valuable resource on our planet that we are wasting to produce the unsafe packaged drink.
On top of that, we are even willing to pay more for destroying our beautiful environment.
- Plastic water bottles are consuming landfills
Even after production of water bottle horror doesn’t end for the environment.
There are like over 2 million tons of PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) water bottles that are overflowing out of landfills in the US. PET is the primary polymer used to produce the plastic bottles.
Yes, PET bottles are recyclable but not every bottle makes it to a recycle bin. Only one is five to six PET bottles make it to the recycle bin and the rest of the bottles just takes out the land space and contaminate the planet.
Plus, let me tell you a disturbing fact that the plastic takes 450 years to decompose, in case you didn’t know.
- Bottled water is so much expensive
We can’t say tap water is completely free but it will cost you a very small amount of fraction of your water bill as compared to paying for expensive bottled stuff.
Bottled water can cost 90 cents to 8.5 dollars a gallon while tap water will cost you less than a penny for a gallon of water. That means you are paying a lot of amount for the stuff that you think will protect your health but, in the reality, you are actually paying that amount to damage your health.
So, why pay an exaggerated amount of money on the thing that’s not even safe and will only create problems for you as well as for our planet.
- Why is tap water safer than bottled water?
If you take a look at regulations set for bottled and tap water then you will come to know why tap water is safer than bottled water.
Bottled water doesn’t have to go through all the regulations as compared to tap water. Violation of standards can be sold in case of bottled water.
Bottled water doesn’t even have to go through testing while tap water has to get certified after testing in labs. Results of tap water must be reported to federal or state officials while on the other hand, there are no reporting standards set for bottled water.
Even natural mineral gets removed in the filtration process of bottled water but, tap water has all kind of essential nutrients like iron and calcium.
Now, you must be wondering if you can’t use the plastic bottle to store water then are there any other alternatives? Well, the answer is yes, there are better alternatives.
You can use glass bottles, copper bottles or stainless-steel vacuum bottles to store the water. All these materials are completely harmless to the environment and safe for your health.
So, remember to use tap water and in case there are no other alternatives, use disposable bottled water. Plus, by ditching the plastic bottle, you are making your life much healthier, saving the environment, and also you save more money.
Author’s Bio:
Jessica is completing her Ph.D. in Cell Biology and works as a lab tech for Foxxlifesciences.com. She contributes content on Biotech, Life Sciences, and Health.