Bottled Water: Don't Buy It!

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Corki said:
Reverse osmosis water filters do not remove phamaceuticals from the water. In order to remove some of the pharmeceuticals you need reverse osmosis, carbon filters AND ion/sub micron filters.

The DO remove trace minerals that humans need.

I am not saying that using a home filter is bad. It is just important to know that if that is your main source of drinking water, you will probably want to take a good mineral supplement.

Another point to remember, if you are worried about pharmeceuticals in the water, the regular water report that you get from your municipal water agency probably does not list them. IF they test for them at all, you will probably have to request that information directly.

LOL, I’ve done that too. The cooler usually has bottles of water in it. 😉

Sorry to be flip. I do think this is an important thing to consider. It just isn’t as easy as saying - “don’t buy bottled water”.

For many people, the better alternative might be to buy water in big containers (5 gal +) and then use refillable bottles for convenience. The environmental impact would be less; the large bottles are refillable or recyclable. The cost is much less.
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Corki,
Reverse Osmosis membranes are sub micron filters. They filter at the angstrom level. Their pore size is three to five angstroms. They block salt. They block sodium ions to about 99% rejection. That is a single atom with hydration spheres. They are used in desalination plants all over the world. There is no filter with greater rejection properties. I am in the membrane business. My company makes membranes that are used in life rafts to filter salt water.

Microporous membranes are size exclusion devices. If the pore is the size of a grape a watermelon can’t fit through. If a sodium ion is a grape a pharmaceutical molecule is at least the size of a cluster of grapes.

Beyond that, the vast majority of bottled water you buy is filtered by reverse osmosis. The systems are essentially no different other than in size from the under the counter versions. The amount of minerals and the type in municipal water or spring water varies slightly. The minerals you need in are sufficiently provided by the food you eat.

Trace minerals are not the sodium, potassium, calcium, etc. we need a lot of, but things like selenium, boron, etc. There is no guarantee that tap water, bottled water, spring water have any trace minerals. It is unlikely that these are present in most water sources and if you got them on a regular basis they could be dangerous.
 
Marsha_Adams said:
My tap water comes from Lake Michigan. When it comes out of the faucet the odor of chlorine is very strong, when I store it in the refrigerator the taste of chlorine is so strong that I cannot bear to drink it. I buy Crystal Geyser Natural Alpine Spring Water.
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Then, as grandfather has wisely suggested, buy a filter for your home faucet–saving both money and plastic.
 
grandfather said:
A household under the sink reverse osmosis filter will block any pathogen or pollutant including pharmaceuticals. They come with pre and post treatment carbon filters. The output of an under the sink system will be in the range of 50 gallons per day, although they vary. They can last for years with no maintenance and run on household water pressure. Cost varies. They are very reliable.
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I lived in one apartment that was built on an area with a very heavy sulfur vein under it. Needless to say the water was very sulfuric; you could not drink it. The lease also prohibited installation of water filters “of any type”. So, I guess I should have bought and drank soda instead of bottled water; it would (apparently) have been better for me.
 
A PUR water filter costs about $30, screws right on your faucet, will produce hundreds of gallons, filters out all bacteria and removes all chlorine and chlorine residual byproducts. Your landlord will never know. It may not remove sulfur, I’d buy 5 gallon reuseable bottles if that were me - the local grocery store carries 'em.

But for the rest of you, I’ve got a great new product: Mountain air! For the low price of $10,000 per year, I will fill compressed tanks with air just outside Glacier NP in Montana and install a system that will release this pristine air inside your home at a rate of one complete air change per day…

(Just kidding, but we are getting there. I’ll not be surprised when such and offer becomes real.)
 
manualman said:
A PUR water filter costs about $30, screws right on your faucet, will produce hundreds of gallons, filters out all bacteria and removes all chlorine and chlorine residual byproducts. Your landlord will never know. It may not remove sulfur, I’d buy 5 gallon reuseable bottles if that were me - the local grocery store carries 'em.
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I’ve already stated that I can get Pocono Springs water for free, that’s $30 less than the PUR water filter.
 
Michaelo said:
Then, as grandfather has wisely suggested, buy a filter for your home faucet–saving both money and plastic.
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Getting chlorine out only requires a carbon filter. an under the sink RO system normally has two or three carbon blocks. Carbon alone will not remove a number potential bad actors. Some municipalities have underground pipes with asbestos. There can be heavy metals in some water, pesticides, herbicides, nitrates (fertilizer). The purpose of the chlorine is to keep pathogens from growing. It is a good thing to have in city water. It prevents biological growth of organisms that can kill us and cause things like typhus epidemics. The reason our cities do not experience these things is chlorination. If you don’t like drinking it get a carbon filter, even a cheap Britta filter will work, although it is wauy over priced.
 
Drawmack said:
I lived in one apartment that was built on an area with a very heavy sulfur vein under it. Needless to say the water was very sulfuric; you could not drink it. The lease also prohibited installation of water filters “of any type”. So, I guess I should have bought and drank soda instead of bottled water; it would (apparently) have been better for me.
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I have a system running in an orphanage in Haiti. The water was so bad there that the nurse bought apple juice to mix with infant formula. Not good for baby, but better than dying of diarrheal disease. In all cases we have to be practical.

Sometimes buying bottled water is the best option. In most cases it is not. It is the most expensive alternative. There is no guarantee of quality.
 
grandfather said:
I have a system running in an orphanage in Haiti. The water was so bad there that the nurse bought apple juice to mix with infant formula. Not good for baby, but better than dying of diarrheal disease. In all cases we have to be practical.

Sometimes buying bottled water is the best option. In most cases it is not. It is the most expensive alternative. There is no guarantee of quality.
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For the third time, this is not a valid across the board argument. I GET BOTTLED WATER FOR FREE.
 
Drawmack said:
For the third time, this is not a valid across the board argument. I GET BOTTLED WATER FOR FREE.
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For the general population it is the most expensive alternative. I don’t know what percentage of the population buys their drinking water at the grocery store and hauls it home, but it is significant. We do know that it is a 20 billion dollar industry in this country. There are about 100 million households in the U.S. So how much does that work out to per household per year? I think it is $200. Wow! It works as long as we can afford it. The fuel costs of hauling the water to the retail outlet and hauling it home is huge. I guess in this case the water supply is tied to the fuel supply. Trucking water hundreds of miles is only possible in a society that is very wealthy. In the orphanage in Haiti all the water is hauled by people three miles every day and it is not close to being potable.
 
grandfather said:
For the general population it is the most expensive alternative. I don’t know what percentage of the population buys their drinking water at the grocery store and hauls it home, but it is significant. We do know that it is a 20 billion dollar industry in this country. There are about 100 million households in the U.S. So how much does that work out to per household per year? I think it is $200. Wow! It works as long as we can afford it. The fuel costs of hauling the water to the retail outlet and hauling it home is huge. I guess in this case the water supply is tied to the fuel supply. Trucking water hundreds of miles is only possible in a society that is very wealthy. In the orphanage in Haiti all the water is hauled by people three miles every day and it is not close to being potable.
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You are misrepresenting the statistics because you are ignoring the fact that many, if not most or even all, businesses have bottled water. When was the last time you were in a waiting room without a water cooler in it? Pocono Springs gets 35 - 40% of their revenue from such business clients. So before we can make geusstimates about how much the average household spends on bottled drinking water we need to figure out how much of that 20 billion dollars is being spent by businesses and subtract that amount from the 20 billion.
 
grandfather said:
There are drugs in sewage and sewage treatment effluent that goes into rivers, specifically from birth control pills, estrogen. This is causing male fish to grow female organs.
It would be very rare for this to be a problem in an American city. The FDA has much more stringent regulations on what is acceptable in municipal water than in bottled water.
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Actually in several rivers in the western U.S. there are almost no male fish because the estrogen effects the eggs laid in the water.
 
Drawmack said:
You are misrepresenting the statistics because you are ignoring the fact that many, if not most or even all, businesses have bottled water. When was the last time you were in a waiting room without a water cooler in it? Pocono Springs gets 35 - 40% of their revenue from such business clients. So before we can make geusstimates about how much the average household spends on bottled drinking water we need to figure out how much of that 20 billion dollars is being spent by businesses and subtract that amount from the 20 billion.
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20 billion is 20 billion. If it is not $200 per home or even half that the point is a major portion of the population is staying alive on water that is hauled to them at great expense, to the office or to the home. When the system fails there will be a lot of thirstly people fast. Maybe they will have to resort to the dreaded tap.
 
Marsha_Adams said:
Actually in several rivers in the western U.S. there are almost no male fish because the estrogen effects the eggs laid in the water.
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This is true and why is it that no one in the mainstream media is freaked out about it?
 
grandfather said:
It is a bit off topic. There is kind of a collection point where all the floating pastic gathers. Who knows what that will mean.
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Somehow I was able to draw a relation between the topic of bottled water and the article I posted the link to. Plastic bottles/water. I do not buy bottled water myself, except on certain occasions when I feel it is expedient to do so. Frequently the water is just tap water run through a filter. There has been a push to have bottled water labeled. It seems silly, but can we really trust our food supply anymore? For that matter could we trust the labeling? I think I heard this on K-love or something. but they said that the bottled water might actually be worse for you than tap water.

But, we like our convenience. That is why we have fat,…er,…fast food and microwave popcorn. I am sure there are people out there who are just waiting for that George Jetson breakfast to be invented,…or the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory multi flavored gum… I have two types of water on my house supply. That which is pumped right out of the lake and that which is processed as potable water, or ‘house’ water. they are both fine waters. My dog can’t tell the difference. Neither can I. Except that the outside water is free because it is melted snow. The processed water has to be paid for because they have to treat it and that costs money, so they get it from me.

I’m rambling, aren’t I? Coca cola makes a lot of money bottling water.It sells for the same or more than their sodas. Think about that…
 
grandfather said:
This is true and why is it that no one in the mainstream media is freaked out about it?
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No body is freaked out about because they aren’t fish. A lot of the things that people should be concerned about start as wacko ideas to the conservative. Then, as it starts to effect them in some way or another, then they sit up and pay attention to it. Until then, people who are concerned about these ‘new’ problems will be wack jobs, pea brains and liberal pinko commies…(maybe even environmentalists…like our Pope!):rolleyes:
 
grandfather said:
Think about the cost. When we spend a couple of dollars per day on something we do not realize the cumulative cost. I was at the airport an a pint of water was $2. When I check in a hotel they want the same price, or at a 7-11 it is also spendy. There are small simple purification systems easy to install at home that over their lifetimes the cost is about a half a cent per gallon. That would work out to less than $2 per year instead of per pint.

It is kind of like going to Starbucks every day. If people had to pay all at once for a year’s worth of Starbucks visits or one or two percent of that to make coffee at home many would stop the extravagance. Our culture is extravagant in many ways like this, because we are so wealthy. Bottled water is one of them and it is ridiculous.

Here is some perspective. There will be over 750,000 babies in Africa this year who will get HIV from breat feeding. 48% of babies who nurse from HIV positive mother will get the disease and be dead by the time they are 2. There is plenty of powdered formula, but no safe water. For a few cents per day per child we could save all those babies, every one of them. The technology is there to do it. While they get sick and die a horrible death for lack of clean water we are spending a hundred times that on what is totally unnecessary.

“I was thirsty and you…”
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While I am considered cheap and don’t like to waist money, I am also a time miser and consider one second of wasted time an utter tragedy… I buy it when Im in a certain mood or vacationing. When I vacation I only care about rest and relaxation, and all that stuff about bottling your own and worrieing about the envirment is something I don’t deal with when it’s relaxing time. What about when the tap water thats availble to me is too metallic for my body to handle? Yes Iv’e thrown up metallic water before! I’m allergic to it. Sorry I’m not so dumb I’ll drink what I’m allergic to. Oh yes, when I lived up where I went to college, it would be silly to install anything like that when Im only going to live there 9 months. If you have time for all that rigamarole, go for it! I don’t. Just another reason for me to distance myself from other Catholics. I go to Mass I go to confession. Otherwise I’m living life my way, not wasting my precous time, that other Catholics don’t seem to value.
 
After reading this thread, if I were rich I’d be buying myself $100 worth of bottld water just to spite these liberal nutjobs. I would likely end up giving most of it away to those who need it.
 
Michaelo said:
Then, as grandfather has wisely suggested, buy a filter for your home faucet–saving both money and plastic.
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Too much of a hassle , nd may require the redoing of plumbing if the plumbing is old and worn.
 
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