Dr. Mercola November 08 2008 22,075 views
Bottled water isn't necessarily any purer than the water you get from your tap -- it's just more expensive.
The Environmental Working Group tested 10 major bottled-water brands. Thirty-eight low-level contaminants turned up in the water, with each brand containing an average of eight chemicals. Disinfection products, caffeine, Tylenol, nitrate, industrial chemicals, arsenic and bacteria were all detected. Two brands contained disinfection byproducts at levels that exceeded California's bottled-water standards, and bottles of Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice bought in the Bay Area contained trihalomethanes, which have been linked to cancer and miscarriages.
In fact, the Wal-Mart water and a brand sold on the East Coast by the Giant supermarket chain were “chemically indistinguishable from tap water.”
The United States sold 2.6 billion cases, not bottles, of bottled water in 2006, according to Beverage Digest, which equates to U.S. consumers spending about $15 billion on bottled water in one year. Worldwide sales top out at more than $35 billion.
However, the market for bottled water may be drying up. Brands like Aquafina and Poland Spring are now experiencing a sales drought. After almost a decade of triple and then double-digit growth, sales volume grew less than 1 percent for the first half of 2008, Beverage Digest reports.
Personally, I feel this is good news. Not only is paying for bottled water like paying for gravity, but the plastic chemicals leaching out of the bottles have now been proven highly toxic to your body, and our landfills are overflowing with plastic bottles that do not biodegrade. Last but not least, paying premium prices for bottled water, thinking it’s more pure than your local water supply, has also been proven to be a complete fallacy.
The Questionable Safety of Bottled Water
The fact that water is bottled is NOT an assurance of purity. In fact, about 40 percent of bottled water IS regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment.
Most municipal tap water -- though generally far from pure -- must actually adhere to stricter purity standards than the bottled water industry.
In a previous study, a third of more than 100 bottled water brands tested for contaminants were found to contain chemicals like arsenic and carcinogenic compounds at levels exceeding state or industry standards for municipal water supplies.
Additionally, while the EPA requires large public water supplies to test for contaminants up to several times a day, the FDA requires private bottlers to test for contaminants only once a week, once a year, or once every four years, depending on the contaminant.
Fluoride (a highly toxic bone poison that should be avoided at all costs) is usually present in both tap water and filtered bottled water. And the toxic metal antimony (a silvery white metal of medium hardness) has also been found in many commercially bottled water brands.
Pharmaceutical drugs are now also showing up both in tap water and bottled water. But at least you can filter most drugs out of your tap water by installing a good water filter…
But perhaps even worse than some of the above contaminants are the disinfection byproducts, such as trihalomethanes, which the Environmental Working Group also found in samples of bottled water.
Water Treatment -- Creating Safe Drinking Water, or Creating Poisons?
Chlorine, chloramines, and chlorine dioxide are some of the more common disinfection techniques used at water treatment facilities today. The primary reason for adding chlorine to water is to make it safe to drink by killing or inactivating harmful microorganisms that cause diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and giardiasis.
Unfortunately, over the years scientists have discovered that byproducts form when these disinfectants react with natural organic matter like decaying vegetation in the source water.
The most common disinfectant byproducts formed when chlorine is used are:
Trihalomethanes include four different chemicals: chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and dibromochloromethane. The EPA regulates these compounds. The maximum annual average of THMs in your local water supply cannot exceed 80 ppb (parts-per-billion).
The maximum annual average of HAAs permitted by EPA regulations is 60 ppb.
Trihalomethanes (THMs) are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they’ve been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. They’ve also been linked to reproductive problems in both animals and humans, and human studies suggest that lifetime consumption of chlorine-treated water can more than double the risk of bladder and rectal cancers in certain individuals.
One such study found that smoking men who drank chlorinated tap water for more than 40 years faced double the risk of bladder cancer compared with smoking men who drank non-chlorinated water.
A second study found that rates for rectal cancers for both sexes escalated with duration of consumption of chlorinated water. Individuals on low-fiber diets who also drank chlorinated water for over 40 years more than doubled their risk for rectal cancer, compared with lifetime drinkers of non-chlorinated water.
Disinfectant byproducts can also wreak havoc with your health even if you don’t ingest the chlorine-treated water. A study published in the Journal of Environmental Sciences earlier this year found that swimming in a chlorinated pool presented an unacceptable cancer risk.
They concluded that the cancer risk of trihalomethanes from various routes in descending order was:
But the cancer risk from skin exposure while swimming was 94.18 percent of the total cancer risk resulting from being exposed to THMs!
THMs formed in chlorinated swimming pools have also been linked to spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital malformations, even at lower levels.
Your Healthiest Water Options
Your best bet for ensuring good health (and protecting the environment), is to filter your own water at home using a reverse osmosis filter.
Do not make the mistake of thinking you can tell if your water is safe or not by the way it looks, tastes, or smells. Some contaminants in water are so harmful they’re measured in “parts per million,” or as in the case of disinfection byproducts, “parts per billion.”
This means that just a drop of these poisons added to several gallons of water can be harmful to your health.
Keep in mind also that installing a filter to purify your drinking water alone may not be enough. Since your skin absorbs both water and chemicals -- as illustrated in the study on swimming pool contamination and cancer risk mentioned above -- you could still be exposing yourself to dangerous levels of contaminants when you:
I have been working on coming up with some solid recommendations for specific water filtration systems for the past seven years. I continue to do research. There are many great options out there but I am looking for the best value, and highest quality, which provides an enormous challenge. However, I am getting closer, and I’m hopeful to provide a GREAT solution in the near future as I have finally been able to locate a water expert I can trust. I found the person who invented the reverse osmosis filter for NASA.
More to come soon….
It seems like I've been waiting forever for Dr M to recommend a water filter. Hurry Dr M, Hurry! :) Until then I've been doing the same thing a lot of people do and buy into the bottle water facade. *sigh*...
Regarding the lawn and rain water: Ever notice the vibrant color of the grass after it rains as opposed to watering? Kind of makes you think.
So if Britta doesn't filter out the flouride, then what? "Raises glass in hopes of a solution!". :)
Since chlorine kill soil microorganisms, wouldn't chlorine also be part of the reason why that we are losing topsoil?
Some of the ways to lower the chlorine in water is to:
1. Fill a bucket with water, then let stand for 48 hours.
2. Install whole house filters(which may be fairly expensive, but they also
remove toxic metals). You can cut down on water use by using soaker hoses.
3. Ban chlorine.
I notice that whenever the media compares bottled water with tap water they fail to mention whether they are comparing bottled DRINKING water with tap water or bottled SPRING water with tap water!
I drink bottled spring water as the crap our city calls drinking water is awful! It is full of chlorine, flouride, and who knows what other pollutants. Since our water source literally comes from a local river, when it rains heavy, especially heavy for several days, the water tastes like river water and then it is even more heavily chlorinated for the next week! Blech!
Since I only drink water and an occasional orange or grape juice (which I buy concentrated and add the spring water to it), I am sticking to my wonderfully fresh and tasy bottled Spring water! It has an amazingly clear taste and I love it. I cannot tolerate bottled drinking water. One of the worst is Aquafina as it has a distinctly metallic taste that leaves an awful after taste behind.
I drink Ice Mountain which comes from CO (I looked up their website) and it is fresh and good. I have tried many different waters, including spring waters that come from PA or MI and they are not as tasty or refreshing.
No! I do not work for nor am I affiliated with any bottled water company or beverage company. I am just a water-drinker who prefers the taste of spring water. IF it came in glass bottles with a closeable top I'd probably love it even more, but it does not, so I will have to continue to purchase what I drink from the store and be happy with it.
And I am very tired of hearing about how water bottles are filling up landfills. What about the colas people drink? These do not fill up landfills? I would recycle my bottles if it were possible, but in my state it is not easily done.
I also purchase another brand of water in a heftier and safer bottle and reuse (after cleaning well every night) each bottle for a week or from a gallon jug so that I am saving money. Been doing this for over 5 years and no problems.
I think sodas are more damaging to the environment than bottled water since HFCS come from GMO corn, and the crops may be transported long distances.
Other indirect damages to the environment as a consequence of drinking sodas are taking pharmaceuticals which pollute the water, and getting the teeth filled with mercury, which are both also very expensive.
Possible reasons why we rarely hear that soft drink bottles fill up landfills is either because when we talk about sodas, we are far more concerned about the health problems they cause than the environmental impact, or because people would buy less soda and there will be less revenue.
DO YOU HAVE FLUORIDE IN YOUR WATER? EVEN IF YOU DON'T DRINK IT DO YOU COOK WITH IT? DO YOU TAKE A BATH OR SHOWER IN CITY WATER WITH FLUORIDE IN IT? YOUR SKIN TAKES IN ALL OF YOUR TOXINS IN A BATH OR SHOWER. FOR EXAMPLE A 10 MIN. SHOWER IS EQUEL TO DRINKING 8 GLASSES OF CITY WATER WITH FLUORIDE IN IT. I MET A LADY FROM TEXAS A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT HAD FLUORIDE POISONING . SHE WORKED AS A DENTAL HYGINIST AND GAVE MANY FLUORIDE TREATMENTS AND IS DISABLED. SHE ALMOST DIED. FLUORIDE IS NO MORE THAN TOXIC WASTE--RAT POISION. THE GOV. DOES NOT WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW HOW TOXIC IT IS.THEY CAN'T DUMP IT IN OUR LAKES, STREAMS,OR RIVERS BUT THEY CAN PUT IT IN OUR WATER. FOR ALL YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT HAVE FLUORIDE AND HEAVY METALS IN YOUR WATER, YA BETTER GET A WHOLE HOUSE FILTER I DID THEY ARE NOT CHEAP BUT CAN YOU PUT A PRICE ON YOU OR YOUR CHILDRENS LIVES? I HAVE BEEN STUDYING ON HEAVY METAL AND FLUORIDE FOR MONTHS. WHAT I HAVE FOUND OUT SCARES ME. OUR GOV.AND THE FDA DOES NOT CARE. ALL OF THE SCHOOL SHOOTING IN THE PAST HAVE ALL HAD ONE THING IN COMMON THEY WERE ALL ON PAXIL OR PROZAC, CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF IT IS MADE ALMOST 100% FLUORIDE IT EITHER MAKES YOU SUBMISSIVE OR AGRESSIVE, IN THEIR CASE WE KNOW WHAT IT DID.HITLER KILLED THE JEWS WITH FLUORIDE GAS. TYPE IN DANGERS OF FLUORIDE AND HOPE YOU HAVE ALOT OF TIME ON YOUR HANDS TO DO ALOT OF READING. YOUR TEFLON COOKWARE IS MADE OUT OF FLUORIDE. THERE IS A DUPONT PLANT IN WV. AND THERE WERE HUGE CASES OF CANCER IN THE PEOPLE IN THAT WHOLE AREA. WHAT DO WE THINK IS CAUSING SO MUCH ADD&ADHD IN SO MANY KIDS ODD HOW ALL THE STATES AND CITIES THAT HAVE FLUORIDE IN THE WATER OR THEY WERE EXPOSED OTHER WAYS. IT'S DAMAGING KIDS BRAINS ALONG WITH THE MERCURY IN THEIR SHOTS.OUR BRAINS ARE 60% FAT AND IT STAYS THERE AND BUILDS UP FOREVER UNLESS YOU DETOX YOUR BLOOD.IF YOU KNOW ANY ONE THAT LET THEIR KIDS HAVE FLUORIDE TREATMENTS IN SCHOOL OR DENTIST OFFICE PLEAD WITH THEM TO STOP KIDS ARE DYING FROM THIS. GO TO FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
We have a Tap Master reverse osmosis filter that we bought from www.perfectwaterfilter.com and we use it to fill Klean Kanteen water bottles. The filter takes out the contaminants, chemicals, drugs, etc. and the Klean Kanteen lets you take your water with you like a polycarbonate sports bottle would but it keeps the water clean.
Me too. The 10 stage New Wave Enviro is cheap, lasts a year before you have to buy a refill for it, produces 5 gal/day and as you say, only leaves in the fluoride (which it seems proud to do - apparently the NWE people don't know how toxic fluoride is.)
We looked into every conceivable filter and bottle including whole house reverse osmosis (wildly expensive and probably not necessarily a selling point for the house) and distillation (expensive).
The 10 stage is not perfect but for the price, pretty damn near. And as you say, small and portable. The flavor is amazing, especially compared to the bottled spring water I've been drinking - much softer feeling, and fresher tasting.
Tap water usually has commercial grade fluorides added. Recent PubMed article notes that the combination of fluoridation and chloramine resulted in leaching lead at spikes of over 900ppb. There are 3 kinds of bottled water: Drinking Water, Distilled Water (if diabetic, this should be used), and Spring Water, the best. It is high in calcium and magnesium, which is needed for teeth and bones. So, if you use the reverse osmosis technique, make sure to up your calcium and magnesium vitamins.
Here in Florida, Zephyrhills Spring Water has been tested and is highly recommended. Proof of this is that the city of St. Petersburg ordered this at the same time they instituted fluoridation!! What was Queen Anne's saying? "Let 'em eat cake (and drink toxic fluoridated water)".
Our newspaper noted that our Washington D.C. government also orders bottled water and we pay for it! I have a letter from Senator Strom Thrumond saying they drink bottled water because they don't believe fluoridation is safe.