'Marketing' is Everything! (or, you could substitute 'propaganda')

Our local water authority sends semi-annual reports on the quality of the water we get, which include extensive lists of possible contaminants and the parts per million allowed and present. However, I use one of those filter pitchers for drinking water, as my house is quite old and the inside pipes are suspect. When I go to exercise, I a have nice stainless steel bottle which has been reused a bajillion times.

Clean running water and electricity are two things that we all take for granted, most of the time. I consistently remind myself (and others) not to do that. Fresh water will likely become more scarce - the 'oil' of the future - some say; so I also try to conserve as much as possible.

"While the bottlers use images of springs, mountains and glaciers to imply that their product comes from “natural” sources, in reality, up to 40 percent of their product actually comes from municipal tap water."

So which is it? If the bottled water is at least 40% tap water, how do the quality issues arise? The cost differential, particularly in production, is obvious.

The intent of the message is good- bottled water is a major boondoggle. But, the message here is diluted at best. Water in cheap nasty plastic containers needs to GO AWAY.

Hemp/algae for plastics could mitigate some of the concerns. Getting our public water pipes fixed and avoiding fluoride is a better solution.

I have a health conscious nephew who refuses to drink tap water in favor of his bottle water of choice. I do understand his reasonings about the chemicals in the water from farming (we live in the corn belt) as I use a water filter myself for that reason. He dismisses my objections about water being sealed in soft plastic and the chemicals that leaches into the water being better than tap water. I think he got sucked into the marketing campaign about being better tap water.

Another thing that I can't understand is Fiji Water. Why on earth do people think that drinking bottled water from an island thousands of miles away is a good idea?

At a recent family gathering we hosted at our home, "yuppie" relatives expressed their chagrin that water was served only "on tap". Several in attendance were shocked when I suggested as an alternative to drinking from the kitchen tap they were welcome to a drink from the hose outside as I am apt to do on a warm sunny day!

Indianapolis has abysmal tap water quality -- unless it is filtered through a good filtration system, more than half of the time it either tastes and smells like a swimming pool, or like something died in it. (They tell us the latter is the result of algae bloom in the reservoir, and that it is perfectly safe to drink.) Some parts of the city have fewer water quality issues than others, but no place has good water all the time.

I use the tap water when it's drinkable, but sometimes bottled is the only way to go. (We rent and don't have a water filtration system.) And Brita filters are less than perfectly satisfactory when it's really bad.

We are mindless sheep (no offense to our wooly friends) who buy and believe whatever idea or fashionable trend that comes down the pike. Much of our culture is bottled in plastic or shrink wrapped. We buy plastic wrapped in plastic. On our plastic little media gizmos we view the world and communicate with our plastic friends. Look in your garbage can at your reflection. Does recycling make you feel better? Production is the problem and we have no political will in the consumer theme park aka USA to alter the status quo. I am sure BP is concerned about fines resulting from the spill. Look around next time you are on the freeway. One stroke of the pen and they can recover any financial loss. I promise I'll quit; just fill er up one more time.

They even sell scads of bottled water in Portland, which has tap water so pure the EPA doesn't even require it to be filtered! There is absolutely no taste of chlorine either.

I've been drinking tap water (including "hose" water) from municipal systems in Philadelphia (PA) and suburbs for five decades without getting sick or bothered by noticeable impurities or bad taste.

So I refused to jump onto the commercial bottled-water phenomenon back when it started (in these parts, anyway) with "Perrier" water.

"Seinfeld" fans will recall an episode where Elaine is amazed to see her boss, wealthy and aristocratic Mr. Pitt, eating his "dessert", a Snickers bar on a china plate, with a knife and fork. She spreads the word, and by the end of the episode people left and right are eating cookies and candy bars on a plate, using a knife and fork-- because "the word" is out that this is a classy and cool thing to do.

As the article notes, bottled water was, and is, a common-sense necessity in parts of the world without easily-accessible clean and safe water. Likewise, there's an ancient tradition of designating certain kinds of water, e.g. "mineral water", as exceptionally virtuous and desirable.

Originally, like "selling" the eating of finger foods with cutlery, the Amerikan bottled-water shtick was a STATUS appeal, not really a "health" appeal; demanding "Perrier" was a way to let everyone know that the drinker had a truly classy, refined palate.

Oh, sure, the marketing stressed the fiction that all this water was super-pure, pristine, and NOTICEABLY "special", ergo worth the price, but that was just the pretext for demonstrating social superiority.

All THAT said, I'm not quite sure how this innocuous "consumer alert" article got into the lineup today. No offense, but it's reminiscent of "Hints from Heloise".

While it's comforting to know that studies show that tap water is better than bottled water, studies also show that chemicals such as of Atrazine, Sodium Fluoride, Percholates, etc., are present, if not prevalent, in nearly all ground water.

You can count on one hand the number of public water systems in the US that filter out the above mentioned chemicals or the dozens of other toxins that have long affected ground water sources we draw from on a regular basis.

Bentonite Clay will help detoxify one's system from the 300-400 chemicals currently in it, and acquiring and using an Atmospheric Water Generation unit will vastly reduce one's exposure to chemicals, in the most precious liquid on earth.

Yes indeed. Public utility trumps pursuit of selfish private interests. Public utility wins. It'll also work for healthcare, education, mass transit, R&D, Fuel/energy/power production & distribution, we aleady know public military forces outperform private merc/soldier-of-fortune outfits. With "promote the general welfare" as the organizing/guiding principle (& NOT private profits) we all can & will live well , & be in accord with our Constitution (which was inspired by the Iroquois Nations doctrine of law).

I confess to buying bottled water on trips sometimes. I chose to drink something that did not have lots of sugar. Of course, I never thought about the environmental costs of drinking bottled water, though I should imagine they are less than drinking coke. The solution is to bring tap water from home in an appropriate bottle. That costs nothing and leaves no environmental footprint.