Reasons Why Everyone Should Avoid Bottled Water

Sunday, August 15, 2010 by: Cindy Jones-Shoeman
Tags: bottled water, plastics, health news

(NewsTarget) Many Americans buy bottled water across the United States every day; this practice stems from the belief that drinking more water is good for a person. Yes, water is truly the best thing a person could ever drink, but bottled water is not the best way to do it. In fact, drinking bottled water is a bad idea. There are several reasons why people should stop drinking bottled water now.

Bottled Water is Usually Just Tap Water

That's right. Bottled water, most of the time, is simply tap water from whatever municipality the bottling company is located in. Sometimes it's purified and filtered; sometimes it's not.

Why would a person want to spend a dollar or two on water that comes straight out of the faucet? At the very least, when a person pours water out of his own tap, he usually knows what's in his city's water, and he can filter it before drinking it. But there are no labels on bottled water that report to consumers what is in the city water poured into a bottle.

Bottled Water Harms the Environment

Here's a frightening fact: 2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour in the United States. Yes, 2.5 million an hour. Imagine how that amount contributes to swelling landfills as well as the ever-growing plastic vortex in the Pacific Ocean.

Drinking water in one's kitchen from a cup produces little waste in regard to the environment. But if a person consumed all her daily water from bottles, imagine how quickly that would add up. Bottled water is bad for the planet.

Drinking Bottled Water Exposes Consumers to Harmful Chemical

No, that chemical doesn't come from the water; it comes from the plastic. Many plastic bottles contain the chemical bisphenol A, also known as BPA, which can leach into the water in the bottle.

Why is this a problem? Studies indicate that BPA exposure is toxic and exposure can cause myriad health problems and can wreak havoc on hormone levels. The FDA is, in typical fashion, moving slowly on the issue, so it is up to consumers to keep themselves safe.

Buying Bottled Water Puts More Money into the Pockets of Big Business

Do people really want to hand over their primary drinking source to big business? It's one thing when a company supplies a product and then tries to convince consumers they have a need for it; it's another thing when they take a real need out of people's hands.

According to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Americans spend approximately 4 billion dollars a year on bottled water. That money goes into the pockets of the very companies that also try to hook people on soft drinks containing caffeine, sugar, and other potentially harmful additives.

But What About Healthful Bottled Water?

Forget "healthy" bottled water. It's a fallacy. John Robbins reports that many of these so-called healthful bottled waters, ones that are marketed as containing vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements, are nothing more than "sugar-water."

As with any product, a consumer would do best to read the labels of these kinds of products. When a water product contains sugar, how healthy can it be for a person? It's not, no matter how it's hyped.

Bottled Water is Bad!

It doesn't matter what companies claim; bottled water is a bad idea. People will be healthier and the environment will be better cared for if people don't spend their money on bottled water.

Sources:

http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.htm...
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,85...
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/bpa.htm
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/exesum...
http://www.johnrobbins.info/blog/the-darksid...

About the author

Cindy Jones-Shoeman is the author of Last Sunset and a Feature Writer for Academic Writing at Suite101.
Some of Cindy's interests include environmental issues, vegetarian and sustainable lifestyles, music, and reading.