Bottled Water! How safe is this!

I don’t know how it came to this!
Apparently bottled water costs more than petrol.
Why anyone feels they have to carry water round I don’t know-I admit when going to choir I carry water-and drink it-but that’s all!
It’s all such a dreadful waste isn’t it?

The water industry is crazy. Not just all the dreadful unnecessary plastic bottles, but the hugely expensive personal drinks containers that seem to be in every handbag. We are so lucky to have perfectly drinkable tap water, and you are never far from a tap. I know some people say their local water doesn't taste too good, but you can always filter it. Did this all start with the advice that we should all drink 2 litres of water a day, when in fact two litres of anything will do?

OH worked as a Water Engineer in various third world countries. He doesn’t approve of drinking bottled water in the UK as those poor countries were lucky to get clean water at all and ours is safe and easily accessible from a tap. I admit to putting tap water in bottles and keeping one bottle in my car and another in a rucksack for when I go out for the day. Our tap water is safe!

I actually can’t drink our house water it’s like drinking bleach even though it’s been tested it’s horrid. I don’t like still bottled water but to stay hydrated I drink carbonated water mixed with ginger lemon or lime juice. It’s not something I drink everyday just when I am thirsty so I feel I should.

ladyleftflower as did my dad.
Tap water all the way and not a drop wasted!

Twelve years ago when I was working in the NHS organising in-house training courses, I was always amazed as to how many (and usually the lower grade workers), asked where our water fountain was. I pointed to our kitchen tap, (Staff room), telling them there was gallons and gallons of the stuff in there.

Usually, they refused, would only drink bottled water. Strange they would happily drink the tea/coffee in our staff kitchen - not sure where they thought that water came from!!

I found a full page in an Observor Colour Magazine about bottled water and its many dangers as well as cost. Turned that into a full sized poster and plastered the walls with it. Not sure if even that got the point over.

I can often smell the chlorine in U.K. tap water so find it difficult to drink. I filter our tap water here in France as it is very hard but I prefer bottled water as a drink - Evian is the purest and is the only one safe for young children and things such as coffee machines.
When I was having my chemo my specialist advised I drink Vichy water - plenty of minerals in it My salt levels are almost non existent so it is good for that too.

I drink pints of water every day, it’s my main drink as I don’t like tea and only have one cup of coffee first thing. I do drink tap water most of the time although I occasionally buy a bottle of water if I’m out and forget to take my own bottle.

I am one of those people who carry a bottle with me everywhere as I like frequents drinks so always have one in the car and on my bag if out for more than a few minutes.

I am fussy though and prefer cold water so keep a jug in the fridge and change the water every day, I never drink from a bottle if the waters been in it for more than a day, it tastes stale to me. I am lucky though that my tap water is really good quality with no chlorine tastes and is not hard or chalky - we get it from the Lake District I think.

There have to be some benefits from living in rainy Manchester!

Tap water all the way for us too! We have a number of 'sports bottles' which are sterilised regularly and just filled from the tap. We sometimes flavour it with some berries or orange zest but mostly it's just water..........pure and simple!

Like ladyleftfield, I refill bottles with tap water and use them over and over again.

The plastic water bottle industry would like me to believe that this is dangerous. Let's just say that having done it for twenty years, I'm not convinced.

thoughts please
Not printable ?

We have refillable bottles and use tap water only.
If we guests for dinner I fill a jug add ice and lime and nobody has ever questioned if it’s tap or bottle.

We did at one time have our own supply of spring water, we had to have it tested regularly, it was good enough to be bottled and sold.
I missed it terribly when we moved..

Same with us Sago. Even when I eat out, I ask for a jug of tap water.

We are also lucky enough to have our own supply. It's from a spring fed stream. The spring is on the common next to us. Even though it is put through a filtration system, we send samples off every year to be tested.

When I visit my daughter, I can't drink her water straight from the tap because of the taste. She keeps a covered jug in the fridge over night, which does seem to cut down the chlorine taste.

Not just all the dreadful unnecessary plastic bottles, but the hugely expensive personal drinks containers that seem to be in every handbag.

If you feel that you must drink water every five minutes then reusable, non plastic, drinks containers are the way to go. It's the plastics that are doing the environmental damage and harming our wildlife.

I suspect that if water had to be sold in glass bottles, no plastic bottles allowed, a great many people would suddenly find that tap water is fine...

Having said that, I'll confess that I get a supply of bottled water in at hay time because bringing in and stacking hay bales is thirsty work. But I should really rethink this.

Also, we take bottled water when out walking. I must get off my backside and buy some reuseable, non plastic, containers for this...

Tap water does us fine all the rest of the time.

Also, it's not imperative to drink plain water for maintaining hydration. . Any of the right amount of liquid taken during the day is fine, whether it's tea, coffee or whatever...

I've never bought a bottle of water - can't bring myself to pay for something that comes straight from a tap.

I fill a jug in the evening, cover it and leave by the sink. (In hot weather, it goes in the fridge.)

That's the daily drinking water. The chlorine smell evaporates and it becomes room temperature, which I prefer in the winter. If I'm going out for a long time, I'll fill my stainless steel flask with it.

I don’t understand this at all. More plastic when our water is perfectly good.

Always reminds me of the ‘ Only Fools’ episode, where they were bottling’ Peckham Spring’ ?

So no...never drink bottled water.

Oh I remember that episode Peckham spring hilarious DiscoDancer??

Tap water only, at home or out. No plastic bottles.

Our tap water is unpleasant so I filter it with the special filters you can buy. They are expensive but each one lasts a month and it saves buying bottled water.

Wasn't that 2 litres a day message misinterpreted from something written donkey's years ago? It essentially said that the total intake of fluids by a typical adult, including all other beverages and the water contained in food, was around two litres. Not that you have to stuff yourself with water incessantly - especially that once dominant Perrier. Dominant until, that is, they found benzene in it!

DiscoDancer1975

I don’t understand this at all. More plastic when our water is perfectly good.

Always reminds me of the ‘ Only Fools’ episode, where they were bottling’ Peckham Spring’ ?

So no...never drink bottled water.

Not to mention (I think) CocaCola, who were planning to launch a bottled water called Dasani here, until some newspaper revealed that it was going to come out of a tap in Sidcup! It was hastily pulled, but I’ve seen it in other countries.

Welshwife, I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t take it for granted that French tap water was ‘potable’ - we were warned about it when I was on my first school trip to France at 14.
Otherwise I’m afraid to say that I think bottled water is the biggest, cleverest con ever perpetrated by France on the U.K.

Back in the early 80s, when we were living in a Middle Eastern desert, and our water came out of the tap hot and brown - it had to be filtered, boiled, and kept in the fridge before we could drink it - we were amazed on our annual trip back to the U.K. to find that bottled water had become a fashion. Because that’s what it is, IMO - a fashion.

I’m going to get an absolute pasting here!
I drink lots of bottled water, both fizzy and still.
The water here tastes horrible.
I must have a super low carbon footprint- I don’t have children; (probably the best thing that I can do for the environment); I don’t drive; I’ve been vegetarian for 30 years; I have flown about eight times in my life, and probably will never again.

I won’t give you a pasting Fanny, I think you have offset your carbon footprint! Have you tried a water softener or filter though? We have a water softener and the tap water is fine but apparently those Britax filter jugs are very good too for drinking water.

We lived in the south of England about 35 miles fro London, our water was gross.
We went away once and on our return a pool of water in the sink had worms in it.
I bottled them up and called the water company, I was told they were freshwater shrimps and perfectly normal?.
After that we boiled and filtered our water