Safe Tap Water

Bottled water has become a controversial topic as of late. There are always two sides to every argument, some think that bottled water is beneficial to society, whereas some people think that it is detrimental to society as a whole. Bottled water is detrimental to society because it costs the country an abundance of money. It is also harmful to society because it is damaging to the environment. A lack of sanitation in bottled water has also been connected to illnesses among people who drink it. Bottled water is in no way shape or form worth the price that one will spend financially, nor is it worth the gamble of becoming sick from all the harsh chemicals that come from the bottle itself.

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?

One of the biggest harms to the world is pollution caused by people. Most of the plastic materials used by people are left to pollute. Bottled water is one of the biggest plastic materials produced. Some people say that bottled water is safer, convenient, and provide jobs to workers in many ways. The reasons for buying bottled water differ. Some people buy bottled water because they don’t like the taste or smell of tap water, while others on the other hand buy it because of health concerns with water contamination. Pollution is one of the biggest problems hurting the environment today, and water bottles that are thrown out after each one-time use, contribute greatly to its increasing buildup. Bottled water is not only expensive to us, but also to the environment. Bottled water is hurting the economy, harming human lives, and damaging the environment.

There are many impacts that bottled water has on the environment. The choice of packaging determines many impacts. The bottles, which are either plastic, aluminum, or glass, that are not recycled are thrown into landfills and buried. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86% of plastic water bottles in the United States become garbage. If water bottlers would have used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved the equivalent of 72 million gallons of gasoline. If they used 25%, they would have saved enough energy to power more than 680,000 homes for a year (Jemmott, 2008). Incinerating used bottles produces toxins such as chlorine gas and ash. Water bottles that get buried can take up to thousands of years to biodegrade. The most common type of plastic is polyethylene

Is the great taste and convenience of bottled water worth the cost of the environmental damages it will cause in years to come? Most would say the cons of bottled water definitely outweigh the pros of bottled water and that everyone should drink tap water out of reusable containers. The answer seems obvious, but it is a simple issue. Bottled water is not worth the cost to the environment, but with some resourceful thinking, bottled water can be exempt from its environmental damages.

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.

In a qualitative study performed in the United Kingdom, “the majority of participants associated bottled water with having fewer impurities than tap water, and were more likely to trust the quality of bottled water than tap water” (Ward). Individuals with well water should also be attentive to the purity of their water supply, as it is not even held to regulation standard. Looking at the facts though, bottled water is regulated by Food and Drug Administration in equivalence to the Environmental Protection Agency who holds the public officials accountable for the standards of tap water (Hogan & Larsen). This is not to say, though, that there is not human error on both sides that can cause room for contamination of a drinking supply and jeopardize the safety of the

Tap water is healthier for you and the environment. People always say the bottled water has a better taste and better value than just regular tap water. Why do others say that tap water is bad for you because off all the germs and bacteria that can get inside of your tap water faucets. I believe that people are wrong about bottle water.

Drinking water that is packaged in plastic bottles has more wasteful and harmful than drinking water from the tap. Water bottles left in hot temperatures can release unhealthy chemicals into the plastic into your drink. Using water from the tap can prevent billions of plastic water bottles from harming the earth. Bottled water isn’t a premium as you think. About 25% of water in bottles comes from municipal sources that may come from harmful

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).

On an average Americans spend about $13billon per year on water bottles and consume about 34 gallons of a bottle of water, According to Thompson, Manroe, & Vaughan (2017) Many Americans purchase a bottle of water because it is more convenient for them. A lot of American believes that bottle of water is much healthier than tap water, they believe that bottle of water contains more nutrients, however, that is not true; According to International Bottled Water Association (2014) “bottle of water has no other nutritional advantages over tap water”. Many Americans also believe that bottled water is much safer and healthier than tap water. However, there is no scientific evidence that supports this claim. Although, I am aware there is no evidence

“One of the biggest challenges facing the bottled water industry is how to respond to the environmental claims levelled against it” (Grocer). Every time someone throws a bottle away, they have taken up more space in a landfill for the next four hundred fifty to one thousand years. Besides the long decomposition rate, water bottles are the cause of several more environmental issues. Overfilling landfills, health hazards caused by refilling, and the economic stresses due to the constant and inconvenient repurchasing are just a few of the negatives water bottles have on us. These plastic pollutants are doing more harm to both the environment and their users than good.

Bottled water has evolved into becoming green over the past few years. A lot of brands use way less plastic for their bottle and have created eco-friendly packaging. According to waste aware, bottled water is the most environmentally responsible packaged drink choice. Even if the bottles were not eco-friendly, it is our duty as a human to make the world eco-friendlier and recycle. Bottled water is greener than most tap water systems.

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.

Every day Americans depend on public water systems to treat and deliver over 44 billion gallons of water to homes daily (“Importance of Clean Water”). However, Americans