BS: Bottled water versus Tap water

Subject: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: GUEST,Joy Bringer
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:29 PM

This morning on breakfast television a presenter poured a 500ml bottle of volcanic natural water costing £25 into one jug, and filled the other jug with tap water and put two experts to the taste test. Both said the tap water was the expensive one !

Bottled water is nothing more than a fashion accessory or a hyped up con health product for some wannabe snob.

Several investigations by a variety of experts have found little or no difference in tap water and natural spring water. I find it so so funny to see these silly people pay £25.00 for a bottle of bloody water. Price snobbery at it's finest.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:36 PM

if you believe that people are paying £25.00 for 500ml of bottled water you will believe anything ...

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:51 PM

When bottled water started appearing in supermarkets about 20 years ago I thought that it was some kind of joke. But no, people bought it, by the millions of litres - silly people!

Now my local nature reserve is knee-deep in empty, plastic water bottles - silly, messy, selfish asshole people!

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:54 PM

The tap water fad is a fraud perpetrated by the modern snake oil salesmen, who also sell all sorts of 'herbal' crap as medicine.
A sucker is born every minute, as they used to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: GUEST,Joy Bringer
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:55 PM

Claridge's in London sell l'eau at £50 a litre, there are more expensive ones than that ! Check the net if you don't believe me.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:57 PM

Of course you know I meant 'bottled water.' The whole thing gets me so upset that I can't think straight. Just poured a single malt to calm myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: GUEST,Joy Bringer
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:00 PM

Enjoy it Q, it's cheaper than water and my bloody heating oil too !
Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:09 PM

I dislike the present trend of being coerced into buying bottled water with the promise that for every litre I buy, the company will give 10litres to a village in Africa, enough for one person for 5 days if they don't want to wash, clean, feed animals or water plants.

I admit to buying bottled water but only on an occasional basis. I blatantly disregard the warning on the side of the bottle and refil it frequently from the tap, which is as good as the original contents. And I only do that because a) I can't find my canteen and b) I like the sippy spouts with closable lids. I use a bottle til the lid drops off and then I recycle it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: GUEST,Joy Bringer
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:23 PM

Liz, the ones cyclists use are cheap, I bought one from a cycle store some years back and it's still going strong.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:32 PM

I've had trouble washing them.... at least with my bottled water bottle I know that it's going to be replaced sooner or later and isn't likely to have smoothies put in it and left to ferment.

When my nice plastic sippy spout bottle started giving me green water, I knew it was time to change it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: lady penelope
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:33 PM

I much prefer London tap water to the bottled stuff. Quite a lot of the bottled stuff tastes vile!

I have one of them metal screw top bottles, but sometimes, if I haven't taken it with me, I'll buy a bottle of water, but only because we no longer have drinking fountains and landlords in pubs get the hump if you ask them for tap water.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:35 PM

Nothing wrong with water in a bottle, and it can be very convenient. Just so long as you fill the bottle from the tap.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:36 PM

I have long regarded bottled-water users as fashion victims with more money than sense. Now that it as been pointed out to most of us that the glut of plastic bottles produced by this craze is an ecological threat, I have even lower regard for them.

The bottles are, of course, recyclable, but that doesn't mean that many of them ever actually get recycled. Most go into regular trash receptacles and then to landfills.

Not that I believe tap water to be perfectly OK. Over the years, I've bought plenty of 5-gallon bottles of spring and/or filtered water to use with a standard dispenser, and currently drink and cook only with water that has been run through the filtration system built into my refigerator's icemaker.

But there's no way in hell I'll pay the price of a soft drink ~ which is overpriced enough, but which at least contains some food value and flavoring in addition to H20 ~ for a bottle of "designer water."

And also: about those water bottles with the nifty caps, which can of course be refilled over and over with tap water or home-filtered water ~ I've never known one to wear out. I lose 'em first.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:51 PM

From: lady penelope - PM
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:33 PM

I much prefer London tap water to the bottled stuff. Quite a lot of the bottled stuff tastes vile!

---

London is a big place and I would imagine that the quality of the tap water will vary dramatically depending on the locality.

The most disgusting drink I have ever tasted was a glass of tap water in Beckenham, but that was back in the eighties, maybe things have improved since then.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:52 PM

There's tap water, and then there's tap water. In my home town, the tap water started furring up the kettle from the first boil. You had to use twice as much soap as elsewhere.
Where I live now, tap water will kill tropical fish if you put them in before the chlorine gas has seeped out of it, and even goldfish aren't happy. You run the bath, and the smell catches your throat.
After a couple of hours standing, it is pure enough to put in a car battery.

We use a water filter with an activated charcoal element in it, just to be a little safer. And because I'm not waiting a couple of hours for a drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:11 PM

I have to admit that my bottled water carbon footprint is not something to be proud of, but when I am thirsty I can only drink carbonated ( sparkling ) water, which I have yet to find in any tap ...

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:12 PM

High organic matter content gives a bad taste to water, which is intensified by the chlorine. Cadiz, Spain, used to be famous for its foul-tasting water, but the same problem affects water in many low-lying areas where decayed organic matter is abundant in surface waters.

The newer treatment plants pretty well take care of the taste problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:29 PM

We have bottled water at home, in our 72-hour kit. Periodically we use some and replace it with new. The "old" bottles are recycled and the "new" ones used until the next time -- they're refilled with tap water.

Consider the label on a bottle of, say, Desani. You'll find it's made from tap (not spring) water, filtered and ozonated, by the Coca-Cola company. In the US, spring water must state such and give the location of the spring, bottled water made from city water sources isn't able to state such.

We have hard water here, but Desani and other tell me minerals are good for me...of course, we do have a water softener at home for laundry and stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: artbrooks
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:52 PM

There was some discussion a few years ago of bottling water from New Orleans' municipal water supply and selling it as Liquid Jazz or some such thing. The idea died when they figured out how many times that water had been previously drunk upstream.

We use a filtered pitcher for our tap water, since our water comes from a municipal well with a pretty high arsenic level, and our walking-around water is carried in one of those bicycling bottles. We must have a hundred of them...I think they breed in the darkness of the garage.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 06:56 PM

Yeah, we use those sorts of bottles too. I can carry two on the butt pack I use for general hiking and more on or in one of my backpacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water verse Tap water
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 07:53 PM

"Liquid Jazz"

Well, it sounds appropriate, taking into account the original meaning of the word Jazz...

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 10:03 PM

I have to drink bottled distilled water because I'm allergic to fluoride and chlorine (I have to rinse off with it, too).

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 12:18 AM

What, no salt with your Margarita?- or Tequila straight?

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 12:48 AM

I can have some table salt (but not iodized salt, which has dextrose in it made from corn, which I am also allergic to). I don't know what allows me to have chlorine in the form of sodium chloride but not to drink water with chlorine or flouride in it. But if I drink water with those things in it, I get sick. If I wash in either of them without rinsing with distilled water afterwards, I get horrible rashes and my skin cracks open. I have to rinse off with distilled water after waking in ocean water, too, so maybe that's why. Maybe it's the concentration of chlorine that's the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 01:24 AM

It might be the chloro-amines...

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Gurney
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 01:45 AM

Artbrooks, someone once estimated that the water in the carafes in the House of Lords, England's upper parliament, had been through 12 sets of kidneys before it got there.
Most of them not human.
No idea how they worked it out.


Of course, there is no 'new' water. The same water has been around since the earth cooled, recycling over and over, so the water has been through BILLIONS of kidneys.
Hope this is a comfort to someone.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 01:52 AM

We have our own artesian well with water of spring water quality. When city folks come for a visit, they usually bring a few empty jugs to fill and take home with them. I'm so spoiled by our water that I can't abide unfiltered tap water from most municipal systems. When we travel, we always take a few gallons of our own water along. On the rare occasion that we run out, we will buy water, but it's usually store-brand water in gallon jugs, not name-brand stuff in individual bottles.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:28 AM

Like Murray Mac., I drink carbonated water.

Our local (Northants) tap water tastes nasty to me. I served my apprenticeship on Southport tap water, among the hardest water in the country. Like MMc, I have yet to come across fizzy water from the tap.

My colleagues buy still bottled water. When the bottle is empty, I fill it with tap water that's been through one of they carbon filters. Always I label this bottle "Tap Watter" [sic].

There was a smart-arse placement student who queried "Watter ? Watter ?!".

I took great delight in saying "Aye, lad, tha knows - t' wet stuff as comes from t' tap".

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Newport Boy
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:29 AM

The River Severn rises in mid-Wales and flows into England towards Shrewsbury, where water is extracted for drinking. In return, the Severn receives the treated effluent from the town's sewage plants. (I was pleased to see news of a £14m scheme to improve the quality of the effluent.)

The process is repeated at Bridgnorth, Stourport and Worcester until the Severn reaches Gloucester, where the system is varied. The water is pumped up from the river into Gloucester Docks and then flows along the Sharpness Canal to Purton, where it is extracted, treated and pumped into storage reservoirs for our taps.

The water is quite palatable, although there is a distinct chemical aroma when the cold tap is first opened in the morning.

For drinking, we keep a litre jug of water in the fridge - this eliminates the chemical aroma. We don't use bottled water. Seeing the environmental damage in Peru and Nepal from use of bottled water by tourists finally convinced us that plastic bottles are an environmental disaster.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:35 AM

London may indeed have hard water, but most of it comes from Oxfordshire so it's not their fault.

I grew up in Dorset where the water gets filtered through chalk and limestone. The difference in soap use and the state of my hair was incredible when I first moved to London.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:44 AM

"The bottles are, of course, recyclable, but that doesn't mean that many of them ever actually get recycled. Most go into regular trash receptacles and then to landfills."

Oh, if only that were true. Around here the selfish, fashion-victim, jogging cretins just drop them on the ground, or throw them in the hedge, as soon as they're empty.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Paul Burke
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 06:16 AM

Not quite true that all water has been around from the beginning. A lot of radioactive decay involves emission of neutrons, and those that aren't absorbed by another nucleus decay (half- life about a quarter of an hour) into a proton and an electron- in other words, hydrogen. And the earth has almost certainly acquired water from comet strikes, perhaps as recently as 1908 at Tunguska.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 06:51 AM

I only buy bottled water when I'm not at home and am thirsty.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 07:54 AM

As a keen cyclist I have quite a few water bottles of various shapes and sizes. I find the best way to clean them is to drop half a steradent tablet in them. ( Tablets for cleaning false teeth )

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: MMario
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 08:42 AM

There was a big hullabaloo around here because it was found that one of the vendors of "spring water" in bottles was filling their containers from the municipal supply. However, they were fully justified as their municipal water *is* spring fed. It just had a little longer trip through pipes to get to the bottles.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 12:11 PM

New Orleans city water is pretty OK, certainly much better than it used to be. It comes from the ass-end of the Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio River system, North America's greatest naturally-occurring sewer, so the local treatment plants have their work cut out for them. There have been several periodic upgrades of our water-treatment technology in recent years; they seem to try and keep up with the state of the art

I remember the short-lived proposal to bottle our tap water, but I don't remember anyone suggesting the brand-name "Liquid Jazz," which does suggest a fairly disgusting subtext. (For that matter, I don't remember any specific name suggestion.) Recent testing by the EPA (or perhaps some other authority) had just given New Orleans city water an excellent grade, at a time when general public opinion still regarded it as dangerously nasty. The water had been pretty bad in the recent past, the quality very much needed improvement, but when the improvements had been achieved, little public recognition was forthcoming.

The proposal to bottle and sell our tap water was really nothing more than a PR trick to direct attendtion to its significantly improved quality, and it worked quite well for that purpose. I don't believe there was ever any serious intent to actually set up a bottling plant.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 06:57 PM

Or you could pay somebody to put the tap-water in the bottle for you:-

Coca Cola admits that Dasani is nothing but tap-water

Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: artbrooks
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 07:24 PM

I stand corrected, PG...but it still makes for a good story.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: open mike
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 09:51 PM

i have a water filter business.
and have recently pushed an ad
campaign aimed at fellow fire
victims...as streams and wells
have been contaminated with ash
and fire retardant and other stuff.

i have been drinking water from the
stream for many years and used these
solid carbon block filters to remove
impurities, giardia cysts, and etc.

i have seen wter bottled in bio-degradable
bottles (made formcorn starch or such) but
wonder wha their shelf life is....

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 11:41 PM

All bottles and cans are recycled in Alberta; pop and beer cans, liquor bottles and water bottles are worth five cents to Scouts or whoever takes them in to depots.
Recycling

Water here is very hard (calcium and magnesium carbonates from glacial and river sources) but taste is good. Have to buy distilled water for steam irons, etc., and furnace humidifiers have to have elements replaced frequently or the deposit dissolved with vinegar, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Becca72
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 07:15 AM

I buy Poland Springs bottled water because I prefer it. I don't like the chemicals added to tap water and think PS tastes better. They use recycled material to make their bottles, and here in Maine almost all bottles and cans have a deposit and are thus "returnable", the exception being plastic milk jugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: MarkS
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 09:36 AM

The tap water our town is really great for carbon remover. We put in a filter and use the filtered water for drinking and cooking. So far really happy with the results. Now, we cannot tell the difference between our filtered tap water and the expensive stuff in a bottle.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 12:04 PM

I live in kansas city. Our water passes over 100,000 tests every year. In a recent contest, it was among the top contenders for best-tasting water in the world. It is quite hard, but the waterworks softens it some for us.

When I drink bottled water, I often find it sweet. I read in Consumer Reports that the sweetness comes from the plastic bottle, which is leaching components into the water. Not a comforting thought. 'Oaky' tastes probably come from the pallets on which the water was been sitting, possibly for months, in a warehouse. Here in the Midwest, I can drive by old brick warehouses which have no air conditioning and wonder if bottles of water are sitting there at 90 to 100 degrees.

So, which kind to drink? It's a no-brainer where I live.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 06:48 PM

"London may indeed have hard water..."

Hard water tastes best to me, perhaps because I've mostly lived in hard water regions. Going on holiday to Devon the local, soft, water is lovely for washing, true enough, but I don't like the taste one little bit. Not that I drink much water on holiday.
...................................

Chlorine added to water isn't the same as salt in water, kat - the chlorine in salt is locked up so it doesn't have that chlorine taste and effects. Chlorine on its own is much dodgier stuff - and the same is true of Sodium - put them together as table salt, and it's a different story.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 07:29 PM

Lead contamination from in new plumbing fixtures:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/38190/title/Lead-free%3F_Faucets_are_anything_but

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 09:05 PM

Tap water, filtered and poured into re-usuable portable bottles. Our tap is rural, not city, so no antiflocculants. :~) Has tested OK for all the scaries, too.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 10:10 PM

Worst stuff in my tap water is too much calcium carbonate. Otherwise it tests fine and tastes okay too.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,Aqua
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 02:10 AM

I actually get sick from bottled water. It seems to act like a laxative - I call it "importing Montezuma's revenge". I'm fine drinking tap water or distilled water. I've never met anyone else who has this problem, and can't find anything on the web about it. I'm guessing it may be some kind of allergy or immune system reaction. Has anyone else had this problem, or heard of it?

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: GUEST,Aqua
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 02:12 AM

P.S. The brand of bottled water doesn't seem to make a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Bottled water versus Tap water
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 02:28 AM

The water in Juneau, Alaska, comes down from the mountains and is achingly cold year 'round. As for taste, it is so good that if it were solid I'd eat it with a spoon. (That sounds gross.)