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Like so many other people of the world I have always bought bottled water. Why? Well, because it is easy, BUT is convenience more desirable than health?
Did you know that 40% of all bottled water is just filtered tap water. In that case I can buy my own filter and filter my own tap, while saving plastic from polluting our environment and adding more money to my pockets. Not to mention the chemicals from the plastic that is polluting me. Plastic bottles that we drink from are 80% P.E.T.E. or Polyethylene terephthalate. Yeah, it took me a couple tries to pronounce it too. What it is though is more important than how it is pronounced.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is clear, tough, and shatterproof. It provides a barrier to oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide and is identified with the number 1. PET's ability to contain carbon dioxide (carbonation) makes it ideal for use in carbonated soft drink bottles. Take a look at the bottom of your soft drink bottle and you will most likely find a number 1 there. PET is also used to make bottles for water, juice, sports drinks, beer, mouthwash, catsup, and salad dressing. You can also find it on your food jars for peanut butter, jam, jelly, and pickles as well as in microwavable food trays.
Recent studies have shown that reusing bottles made of PET can in fact be dangerous. PET was found to break down over time and leach into the beverage when the bottles were reused. The toxin DEHA also appeared in the water sample from reused water bottles. DEHA has been shown to cause liver problems, other possible reproductive difficulties, and is suspected to cause cancer in humans.
Where is it that these bottles end up? In our land fills, recycling, side of the road, and, you got it, in our water supply??? The chemicals are leaking out into our fresh water system, into our ocean life as well as wildlife, and, that's it, right back into us!
There are only a handful of states the mandate recycling and add a $.05 or $.10 deposit on each bottle, Maine being one of them. With the deposit approximately 70% of people recycle, but that is compared to 20% who recycle in the rest of the country, where it is not mandated. So in my estimation these plastic bottles after the first use are sitting in our water and environment leaking out chemicals that we are then putting in our children and ourselves...ew! Think about that the next time you want to throw a bottle on the ground!
And this, is only the plastic. We have not even come to the water part yet...which is scary.
Water is a natural resource, so shouldn't it be a natural right to have water, to not "own" water, to share it, and to take care of it? Most people think this, but (of course) corporations have a different view on it. Since it can make them money by fooling the people of the world, by convincing them they are giving you a "natural" product at safer way to go. How safe are the chemicals in the plastic? The best part of all of this is that most bottled water is only filtered tap water...that is why they call it natural.
Nestle, who is owned by Pepsi, also owns Poland Springs, Zephyrhills, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, and Deer Park water, believe that they can do whatever they want to. Nestle came into Fryeburg, Maine, before any of the towns people knew, and started pumping water from the town's well, and since Maine has what is called Absolute Dominion law (whose pump is bigger), they had every right to come in and take the water from this town. Fryeburg went two days without their water supply, until they could pump in another well to receive water. The nursing homes, children, and animals had a horrible time during these two days.
How is it that during a drought of 35 states, where residents were on strict water usage restriction, that Pepsi continued to pump approx. 350,000 gallons of water a day to bottle and sell, were being sold back to the drought ridden people???
No one can say what the long term effects of destroying our environment by bottling water will have on people. It is only since 1989 that water was being bottled in plastic.
Did you know that the FDA doesn't have a whole lot to do with bottled water companies? The monitoring of bottled water in really inadequate due to the issue of the bottled water companies doing their own testing and reporting of said water. In easy words they are self regulated. The FDA also only covers products that are crossing state boarders, which most corporations like Pepsi and Coke, keep it locally within state. They bottle the water from the state they sell it right back to.
Tap water is constantly being tested, multiple times a day, to see if it is drinkable. It is a regulated system, where the water is tested by municipalities officials approx. 300 times a month.
You healthiest, safest choice is to get a refillable, non-BPA, container, and drink your tap...refill at water fountains, since they are regulated, and help educate others on the folly of bottled water!!!
