Discussion bottled water: good or bad?

[igotthegoods]

do you drink bottled water? if the answer is "yes" and you live within the city limits of chicago, you are now paying a 5-cent tax on each bottle that you purchase (5 cents for one bottle, 30 cents for a six-pack, etc...). you can get the full details here.

what do you think about this subject? is the tax fair? should we tax other, less healthy alternatives like soda instead? is bottled water really that bad for the environment? what are the reasons you choose/not choose to drink bottled water? etc...

btw, there is already a lawsuit pending in an attempt to get rid of this tax. do you think it will be successful?

 

[Leen]

Troublesome. Why drink bottled water when you can drink from pipe?

Bottled water can sometimes be bad depending on the type of plastic used to contain those water. If it says "1" you might want to consider the manufacturing date before buying it.

Anyway, I do buy bottled drinks. Not water but things like Gatorade, Vitamin Water and such. Do that count? =D

5 cents for each bottle is stupid but I think they want to do it "in the name of protecting environment"?

 

[_ATMA]

i drink bottled water since i live in the country side and live off a well where the water is very heavy and rough

 

[Kazu-kun]

Been living with this for about a year now. I live in Hawaii, which makes me really question why I am drinking bottled water. I live in HAWAII for god sakes, Water that comes through faucet is clean here.

 

[mrcongojack]

I LOATHE bottled water. Nothing about bottled water is good for the environment and usually it isn't much safer than the crap that comes out of the tap. Water bottle companies really f#ck up water levels in the areas they pump the water from, which can ruin an ecosystem. Plus, half the time the bottles people drink are thrown out the car window when they're empty. To top it all off, it's much more expensive than tap water. So you get to pay more for water that isn't greatly safer than tap water and destroys the environment! What a deal!

 

[LadyHatake]

I drink bottled water in my dorm, because the tap here is nasty. Usually I go for Fiji or Evian, just because the bottles are pretty~ At home, I drink it from the tap, though I do have a filter on it. They say that drinking from the tap can be healthier, because water treatment plants add flouride to the water, and it's good for your teeth.

and extra tax on bottled water? Sheesh.

 

[igotthegoods]

i personally feel that this tax is more about raising millions of dollars for the city and less about actually protecting the environment i don't think the tax is really deterring many people from buying bottled water, though i may be wrong. i haven't seen any numbers or anything yet, but i am still seeing many people drinking and buying it (i actually work somewhere that it is sold).

that said, i do drink bottled water. i have a brita filter at home, but i drink it when i am on the go or at work (can't spill something with a cap ) and i try to refill the bottles. i love the taste of things like vitamin water, which i drink occasionally, but they are very high in sugar and calories

 

[segua]

Did you know that Evian is Naive spelled backwards?

I think it's a big rip-off to buy bottle water for a buck. I rather go to a water store that sells filtered water by the gallon for a price that's even less expensive than bottle water. I don't mind owning a bottle to put water in but buying bottled water is just something else. Most of them taste horrible.

 

[_Zac_]

I live near Chicago and I drink bottled water because I hate the taste of the tap water.

Every water fountain I drank from tastes better than my tap water.

 

[Paper]

i don't know if you folks have tried it yet, but if you leave water in a PVC bottle for a long time it starts to get a weird chemical like taste...i hear thats supposed to be bad for you.

 

[Gold Knight]

Depends on the local tap really. However you have to be careful, because some bottled water do come from tap water!

Still, even bottled water that comes from tap water is sometimes better-tasting than the local tap water, but it's all the same either way.

I now only purchase bottled water when I'm on the move, now that I know better about it. I used to drink it all the time at college because I was uncomfortable with drinking from a water fountain, considering all the people who could have used it that day. But then again I guess it's no better than opening a door where the knob's been touched by thousands of people and might have never once been cleaned. Blah.

 

[igotthegoods]

However you have to be careful, because some bottled water do come from tap water!

i think i've heard this, too, but does anyone have examples? i'm too lazy to look, hehe

 

[Gold Knight]

Dasani and Aquafina both admitted it.

Just taking full advantage of people's ignorance -.-;

 

[igotthegoods]

hah, you beat me to it

i guess i'm not so lazy after all....i just found this article. apparently 25% of all bottled water (including the brands gk mentioned) comes from the tap! yikes, that's more than i thought

 

[Paper]

hell evian comes from a river or what not, goes through a tap, then to a bottle....what if i were to take a leak atop the alps???

 

[Rahan]

It depends on where I live.
When I was living in Paris, the tap water was pretty bad and I only drank it when I was out of bottled water.
Here (East of France), I still buy bottled water (Evian or Vittel), but I sometimes drink tap water.

I have to say the best water I have drank is the tap water from a mountain village / ski resort in the Alps (Megeve) I used to go every year.