Persuasive Essay On Tap Water

Seventy percent of the human body is comprised of water. This makes drinking water quality vital. The EPA estimates the average adult consumes 1.2 liters daily or 115 gallons of community (tap) water daily while the average consumption of bottled water per capita in the U.S. is in excess of 30.8 gallons per year and is expected to continue to increase according to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the Beverage Marketing Association’s 2013 report. Bottled water costs anywhere from 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than the average cost of tap, but people’s perception that bottled water is purer, safer or healthier is driven, in part, by strong bottled water marketing campaigns that focus on news reports about crises that involve municipal water supplies. (NRDC, “Bottled Water Pure Drink or Pure Hype”) The sources for both tap and bottled waters as well as additives to either enrich or neutralize contents of water determine the mineral and chemical composition of drinking water. Is bottled water really any purer or healthier than local tap water?

In fact 22% of test water bottle brands had chemical contaminants higher than the state limit (ABC, 1). So why do Americans think bottled water is so great? Maybe it’s because of how much companies advertise the product, advertising expenses for bottled water totaled $61 million in 2012 ("International Bottled Water Association" 1). Whatever the reason may be, bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the U.S.A., and more and more bottles of water are being produced and distributed this very second.

Billions of gallons of bottled water are consumed in the United States every year. Many Americans choose bottled water for its convenience and say that the taste is much better than tap water. They say tap water is flat and tasteless. Some argue that the cost of bottled water far exceeds the cost of tap water. One study showed that one bottled water per day would cost the consumer $365 per year while the same amount of tap water would cost ten cents. While bottled water is more expensive, it provides over 130,000 jobs resulting in over six billion dollars in salaries for american workers “Bottled Water Matters.” In the article, “ Bad To The Last Drop,” Tom Standage says that bottled water is too expensive and encourages people to stop buying bottled water and give the money to charity. In the article “ In Defense of Bottled Water,” Thomas J. Lauria says that eliminating bottled water would have the unintended consequence of driving people to choose more unhealthy beverages which have thicker plastic bottles and would be worse on the environment. He also says that bottled water is an important choice in situations where there is a lack of tap water or concern about water

Water is essential to life, scientific fact, not debatable (Tracy). More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about a third of the public consumes it regularly (Olsen). Many drink or buy bottled water simply because they believe it is of better quality, cleaner, and better tasting. On the contrary, several individuals do not know the cons of drinking bottled water. Today, there are many misconceptions and myths about bottled water. Many people are uneducated about what goes into our bottles and how it not only affects us but also our environment. In the article “The New Oil” by Jeneen Interlandi and Ryan Tracy they discuss the issues that have to do with water and the privatization of it. They believe there is a crisis and something has to be done. Due to the cost, pollution, shortage, and health issues, bottled water should be outlawed. Water should not be controlled by water bottle companies and should not be allowed to be sold in plastic bottles.

Gleick supports this argument and cites specific grounds that disprove bottled water companies’ false claims. For example oxygenated water is said to “strengthen your immune system…and even brain function” despite scientific testing done proving that a single breath of air contains more oxygen than the product itself (Gleick 118). Next, the author recalls someone who drank nothing but super-hydrating Penta Water, which cost over sixty dollars a case. This costly expense was proven to be futile, because scientific evidence proved that Penta did not have any health benefits superior to those of ordinary water (Gleick 129). Barnett incorporates a qualifier which states that it is difficult to conclude whether bottled or tap water is healthier. However, this does not take away from the fact that the EPA, which regulates municipal water, is more strict than the FDA is with regulation over bottled water. Bottled water companies claim they intensely purify their products despite this evidence. These seemingly astonishing claims mislead consumers who do not possess the knowledge nor the equipment necessary to test the water themselves. Consumers spend money to purchase products that turn out to have no outstanding health benefits. They may additionally put their health at risk by consuming bottled water which may contain pollutants detrimental to the human body.

Did you know that 25 percent of bottled water is actually just tap?2 While drinking bottled water takes up landfills and causes pollution, tap water is good for the environment, and little waste is made. Using tap water is better than using bottled water.

Safety and cost are not the only issues standing in opposition to the bottled water

Many people believe that bottled water is much safer than tap water. This is a false statement according to websites like CNN, National, Geographic and Money Crashers.

Attention getter: “Every five minutes in the U.S over 2 million plastic bottles are used (Arrey).” Americans drink about 7 billion gallons of bottled water a year that’s about $8 billion dollars in sales per year (Arrey). We all drink bottled mineral water these days. We all like to think it's a far healthier option than tap water. It's extremely handy to be able to carry around your own water supply in in this hectic and fast paced world

In the article “Trust on Tap”, Kate Brown explores the why the vast majority of people turn to bottled water as opposed to tap despite bottled water’s many drawbacks. The article discusses how it was found that people in a survey seem to believe “convenience, cost and environmental impact” (Brown) are a “secondary” (Brown) concern and many drink it because they believe it is “better quality” (Brown). Despite this view, it is completely untrue that bottled water is “safer” (Brown) than tap water. According to an expert in water quality, Stewart Khan, tap water must meet more “stringent… criteria” (Khan) than bottled water to ensure purification. Lastly Brown shows how many water companies lie to the public, just as Nestle did as they led the public to believe their water was spring water although it was in fact groundwater they pulled “near a present… waste dump” (Brown).

However, our population doesn’t know about this current danger, they have been lulled into believing that bottled water is healthy.

Everyone wants to know which water is safe for them, is it bottled water or tap water? The US drinks more bottled water than any other country across the globe. Not only does the US consume more bottled water, but uses a lot of energy to produce the bottled water. In developing countries, tap water is safe and ‘drinkable’. Bottled water and tap water come from the same sources, but tap water is better than bottled water. Some ways in which tap water is better than bottled water is the cost, environmental impact, and safety.

While drinking bottled water might seem healthier, studies have shown that the U.S. FDA regulations allow some contamination of fecal material and E. Coli in the water bottles (All Filters). Kids are taught that bottled water is purified, and for that reason far healthier than regular tap water. Though this is not completely true. People are constantly exposed to different advertisements displaying bottled waters like Aquafina and Dasani. But what they do not say is that the water is not actually what they think it is. Studies have shown that most bottled water is actually 40% tap water (Mercola). So even if Americans are trying to avoid tap water, chances are they are still drinking it unaware of what they are really drinking. Americans deserve the right to know exactly what they are putting in their bodies,

There are some things that people probably didn’t know about bottled and tap water for starters when citizens buy bottled water they are not getting what they pay for and if they stop buying bottled water and just get it from the tap then there are chemicals in it that could affect their health sadly one of the only solutions to this problem lies in home water filtration installed in the sink or wherever your drinking water comes from.

Have you ever had any concerns about bottled water? Do you think that bottled water consumption should be banned? Bottled water is water packed in plastic containers and sold for human consumption (Health Canada, 2013). Currently, the amount of bottled water consumed has increased considerably since many people feel it is safer drinking bottled water than tap water (Parent and Wrong, 2014). According to The Statistics Portal, the global sale of bottled water took a leap from 161, 589 to 181, 608 liters from 2009 to 2011. Only in the United States, each American citizen consumed around 32 gallons of bottled water in 2013, thus meaning an equivalent growth of 15, 94% over 2009 (The Statistics Portal, 2014). In fact, due to good portability, bottled water has been helpful in both simple and complex situations such as daily exercises and natural disasters. Even though having those few considerable advantages, bottled water still have been less beneficial; especially due to the negative impacts in the socio-economic, health and environmental fields.