<p>Ucba, thanks for the recommendation, but why distilled water? While I do wash my hands and brush my teeth with our tap water, I do not drink it or prepare food with it. We keep gallon jugs of spring water on hand for those purposes. We live in an area where all the homes have well water. There are many farms and manicured lawns in our immediate vicinity. The amount of chemicals that we observe going into the ground is staggering. So yup, we avoid consuming the water. We also have a centralized water filtration system in our basement. Not sure how much it helps.</p>
<p>Lorem, if you read the labels on the water containers most of them identify the source of the water. You are correct, brands like Dasani are just purified municipal water. But there are other brands that list the source as natural springs and identify where the water is coming from. But in either case, the water is probably cleaner that what is coming out of our well.</p>
<p>I like our city water and will readily drink our tap water. I do still buy bottled water, though, because it seems no matter how well I wash a water bottle I still get sick if I reuse it. In situations when only well water is available, I have to drink bottled water because for some reason the well water makes my throat swell shut once in a while-- I know sulphur has that affect on me so I wonder if it could be traces of sulphur in the water. I try to only use bottled water in a situation when water in a glass really would not do, which isn’t all that often. I read recently that the student government at my alma mater is pushing hard to ban water bottle sales, and I would have been really aggravated if they had done that while I was still there. I usually had my own bottles but if I ran out of water or ate an unplanned snack and needed something to drink, I would not have been pleased to have to buy pop instead of having a healthy choice.</p>
<p>Are there many Universities out there that run on well water? Unless you attended one of those cooperative farm as college schools I bet you’re pretty safe.</p>
<p>I wish more schools would have a ‘no bottled water’ initiative. Brita and other water filters are great for use in dorm rooms, and filling stations throughout campus are brilliant.
We’re creating a nightmare for future generations at the rate at which we’re consuming bottled water.</p>
<p>*In fact, about one-fourth of bottled water is actually bottled tap water, according to government and industry estimates (some estimates go as high as 40 percent)**. And FDA rules allow bottlers to call their product “spring water” even though it may be brought to the surface using a pumped well, and it may be treated with chemicals. *But the actual source of water is not always made clear – some bottled water marketing is misleading, implying the water comes from pristine sources when it does not. In 1995, the FDA issued labeling rules to prevent misleading claims, but while the rules do prohibit some of the most deceptive labeling practices, they have not eliminated the problem.
[NRDC:</a> Summary Findings of NRDC’s 1999 Bottled Water Report](<a href=“http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp]NRDC:”>The Truth About Tap)</p>
<p>My son’s college (in very Green Vermont) has water bottle filling stations all over campus along with many other green initiatives. It’s funny because when my daughter started looking at colleges about 10 years ago, I would often collect the college labeled plastic water bottles wherever we visited. Now disposable water bottles are something that colleges don’t want to be associated with!</p>
<p>I hear you emerald, there is a lot of marketing going on with bottled water, and along with that a lot of deceptive practices. But pure water is a rare commodity these days, and like everything else that is rare, it becomes marketed as a luxury.</p>
<p>Have you heard of Michael Mascha? He is an Austrian anthropologist that travels the world locating and testing the purest water sources. The newest luxury water on the market is Crevasse, which is glacial water from Patagonia. Talk about marketing!</p>
<p>You have to do your research. Purity in water is measured by Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). My research concluded that two of the purest bottled waters were Nestle Pure and Penta. They are in two different price categories, but I like the taste of both of them. For in home use, because of our well, we purchase large quantities of spring water which could in fact be treated as you say, but it is vastly cleaner than we believe our well to be.</p>
<p>HarvestMoon1, have you thought about taking a sample of your well water and sending it off to a testing facility to see what sort of impurities are actually in the water? I don’t think it’s very expensive, and even if it costs $100 it’ll pay for itself pretty quickly if it winds up being your water is perfectly safe.</p>
<p>If it’s not, you can always look into getting a system that will do reverse osmosis or whatever treatment you prefer for your whole home. In the long run it’ll certainly be cheaper (and more ecologically kind) than buying bottles (which I hope are at least being recycled). </p>
<p>Keep in mind about where contamination can be taking place in the delivery system when you’re not on well water. I’ve been living in my current apartment for three years. When I first moved in the water was crystal clear. About a year after living here the water started coming out cloudy. Bought a Brita filter and used it on everything I drank/cooked with. A week or so ago they repaired the water main from the city to our building and the water is suddenly clear again. My guess is the bushes they had to remove to get at it had grown roots into the pipes and caused a leak.</p>
<p>Finally, from your USA today article…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Looks like even getting bottled water might not put you in the clear (plus you’re getting whatever might leech out of the plastic on its way to you).</p>
<p>Racin, about a year after we moved into our home, we had our water tested after observing all the chemicals that were going into the soil by local farmers and our neighbors gardeners for lawn maintenance. The results were abysmal. And yes, some of the chemicals found were those used in weed killers and pesticides. But addressing problems with well water is complicated. It involves taking on your neighbors and the township, who really don’t want to become involved in the whole “farming with chemicals” issue. Legally, we know they have an obligation but who wants to lead that charge?</p>
<p>So we installed a water filtration system and have our water tested every year. Is is better? Absolutely, but still not where we would want it to be for the purposes of drinking it. Having said all that, half of our neighbors do what we do, and the other half think we are all crazy and happily drink the water. So, it is really just a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>I don’t like the plastic bottles either, and yes we recycle.</p>
<p>To be fair, in a lot of places the water just isn’t something you want to trick. Two that stick out to me were Odessa, Texas and Mt Angel, Oregon. Worst water I’ve ever tasted… It was seriously green coming out. Makes you realize now nice good water can be.</p>
<p>Most bottled water is just rebottled tap water. Even if it is from some mountain spring or something, you do not necessarily know that the groundwater or surface water from which the spring comes from is uncontaminated with whatever you fear from the tap water.</p>
<p>Heck, even if it’s from a pristine mountain spring, there’s no reason to assume that the dissolved minerals in the water are necessarily good for you. It depends what they are.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
yes, I just started researching it and read that it is “bland” because all of the minerals are removed in the distilling process. But I will take “bland” any day over a cocktail of chemicals!</p>
<p>Distilled water doesn’t have any taste. We have pretty good tasting water, although I filter it because we have old pipes. Across the lake though, the tap water smells like chlorine.</p>
<p>H, younger D & I, all carry water bottles. It makes it easier to stay hydrated.</p>
<p>Washing water bottles is easier if you use a wide mouth one, or get a brush like for baby bottles. If you have real problems getting it clean, you could try using the cleaning tablets designed for camelbaks.</p>