First off, I know there's always someone who might need to buy their water due to bad water supplies in their area. But I think it is just insane for most people to be buying this stuff.

First of all, most tap water is as good or BETTER than bottled water as far as purity.

Secondly it is wasting resources to manufacture the plastic and it create pollution to make all these dang plastic bottles.

Thirdly it is creating a huge amount of waste that must be dealt with.

Fourthly it is entirely a product of marketing. You're being manipulated to believe it is better for you. It isn't!

If you want to improve the clarity and remove the chlorine from your tap water, that is easy enough to do with simple filtration. If you're REAL concerned, spend a few hundred dollars and get reverse osmosis. But for the sake of the planet, our decreasing resources and increasing pollution, stop buying this stuff!

At the company where I work they have reverse osmosis water machines for about every 10 people here (little coffee/water stations all over the building). But they STILL are bringing bottled water to the meetings. Its just dumb!

Bottled water, a natural resource taxing the world's ecosystem

i do buy bottled water. i never have been able to stand the taste of water but was able to adapt to the slightly sweet taste of crystal geyser. i don't think it's any better than the tap though, and we use tap water to cook and make coffee, but for some reason, the water that comes from the bathrooms smells like sewer and i cannot put it in my mouth for anything, not even teeth brushing. the smell makes me want to vomit. the smell isn't always there, but often times it is.

I use the bottles to keep track of my drinking throughout the day - it easy to remember how many I drank. I will refill them over and over until I think I need new ones and then I'll buy another pack.

Your right though - I feel totally guilty doing it and yet dont stop.

The only time I have ever used bottled water is when someone has given me one. I grew up before bottled water was fashionable and never saw a reason to use it. I do know people who seem to have a plastic bottle attached to their hand.

You can buy reusable containers pretty much anywhere. So much more economical and ecological than buying bottled water!

My tap water is a little cloudy and has a chlorine taste. But running it through a filtration pitcher fixes it up just fine. If my water were really nasty that I needed to use bottled to brush my teeth, I'd keep a pitcher upstairs too. In fact... I might do that anyway.

I never buy bottled water. I've got a nalgene and a pur pitcher filter, and that is good enough for me.

Sadly, I cannot get the fiance to see the error of his ways. He doesn't drink straight bottled water, but he drinks those 1-liter plastic bottles of seltzer. We buy 12 at a time and I have to get them at least once a week. It's crazy I tell ya! He actually surveyed our recycle bin the other day and said "man, maybe we should stop drinking so many bottles," so I guess he is starting to take a step in the right direction.

I am addicted to one-liter bottles of Poland Spring, but no more. I saw that article and was immedialely convicted. The water where I live is great, plus I get my drinking water through the filtered dispenser in the fridge door.

No more bottles for me!

saddly i do drink bottled water, but i do recycle.

Horray! Another person has thrown off the yoke of slavery to Madison Avenue!

Nancy, I love the bunny pic!
Well, we live in an area with terrible water, the smell of chlorine is so strong that I'd really rather drink from a swimming pool than our tap. We do recycle tho, so I like to tell myself it's ok. I'm probably a little paranoid, but I just don't trust the standards that are supposed to keep our drinking water safe. Why does the gubment have any reason to be anymore stringent about our drinking water than they do about our food supply? I saw this news clip on tv the other day about how so many people are drinking bottles that (gasp!) we are now dangerously deficient in the fluoride that we must have at all costs to survive. They recommend finding ways to "get your fluoride" if you must drink bottled water. This to me smacks of the whole sugar, msg, processed carbs, statin drugs, pick your poison-- is safe. I wouldn't drink pond water even if I ran it thru a filter first. That said, I don't really know where my bottled water came from--and it could be strait out of a tap somewhere in south dakota--or what so called safety standards the bottlers supposedly adhere to, but somehow it makes me feel like it's healthier to drink.

Good Points Nancy,
I don't buy bottled water, I have never been able to bend my mind around that. We have nice systems in our office and I have the same reuseable bottle I always use. Mostly for keeping track, mind you. At home the tap water is just fine.
I do induldge in Fruit 2-O, it is my replacement for diet coke. I only allow one a day. I LOVE IT!!! BUT I do recycle!!!

well, i am going to keep drinking bottled water and take a little heart int he fact that we do recycle. it's either drink the bottled water, or i wouldn't get any. i truly hate water and the ajustment to taking in more liquid has been a difficult one. i've always been a spare drinker and am used to being more dehydrated than not. during wintertime when it is not hot, it wouldn't have been unusal to have two or three cups of coffee, a pepsi, and that's it for the day. now i take in more but depend heavily on drinking water that tastes fairly pleasant to me.

i also drink the bottled nestle's pure life flavored waters and i do reuse bottles for tea and crystal light.

How about trying to do what you can to lessen the impact? Recycling is better than not, it still uses a lot of energy. Could you use a filter at home at least?

Do you have filtered water at work you could use?

Lets be rational here. You have no idea what you're drinking when you get bottled water. At least in my area they send me a report every year and I can call them and ask them questions. Bottled water plants have purity problems too and sometimes get bacteria and stuff in their equipment. If you read the article, most of it starts out as tap water anyway. You're buying the illusion of purity. You're a tool for advertising agencies. You're being manipulated into believing things that are not true.

A simple filtration device gets rid of chlorine and lead. What you guys probably spend on bottled water in a couple of months to a year could probably buy a nice reverse osmosis system and end up with water that is cleaner than bottled.

There's something here for everyone:

1) Lessen our dependence on oil making those plastics and the fuel used to recycle them.
2) Pollute less (lots of the chemicals from making plastics like this is getting into the oceans and waterways).

i don't work. i don't have a filter either. we do have filtered water through the frigdge, but even that smells funny/fishy. it's disgusting. everyone else in the house drinks it, but i don't. maybe someday that will change, we'll see. it took me 33 years to get where i'd drink water at all. i kid you not, you could add up my ounces consumed in a one year time period with the fingers of both hands, maybe even one hand. i fugure i've made alot of progress, so for now, i'm going to have to go with that. i'm supposin then that you'd probably find my liberal use of ziplock bags pretty apalling too btw, i used to live in san diego too. would you consider mailing me some of that sun? lol

hey, you added to after i read it lol