7/27/07 Water

[Minis On The Edge]

We used to drink tap water as a kid and then in the 90s I started buying gallons of water in the jugs. Now we buy bottled water and I am thinking about filtered water. How many of you do t he Bottled or filtered water thingy?

I think I should just go back to tap! :yes:

[uppitycats]

Funny you should be doing this poll. There was just an article on MSNBC that says that Pepsi is going to start putting a disclaimer on their "bottled" water that essentially says it comes from a tap somewhere. As does Coke's bottled water. Consumer Reports has done blind tests on bottled water and tap water, and New York City tap water wins every time.

If your tap water has a "funny" taste or smell (Oshkosh Wisconsin water is heavy on the clorine, for example!) then running it through a carbon filter would be a good idea.

Environmentally, using bottled water is a bad idea...not that there's a problem with the water...but to make the plastic for the bottle expends 3 times the water that ends up in the bottle...and then there is the issue of making sure that the bottle gets recycled. Only something like 1 in 5 end up recycled.

We have our own well, and so get it tested once a year for purity/safety. Very occasionally there will be a problem with sediments, at which time we run the water through a carbon filter, but that's happened only twice in the 10 years we've lived here. But then of course there is a problem with well water -- it can be contaminated, particularly in farm country (all that cow poop, chicken poop, and worst of all, pig poop!), and of course well water isn't treated with flouride (which in my opinion is a GOOD thing, although I know folks will differ with that!)

In the summer time I fill an empty glass juice bottle with water, put it in the fridge, and refill it as necessary. Otherwise, we just drink water from the tap. I bought a couple of bottles of water --they're a convenient size -- drank the water, and then just refill the bottles from the tap, as needed.

Anyway, MUCH more than you asked! :yes:

[Shakyshaky]

We drink distilled water. The water here is really bad. Distilled water is better than filtered. It's bad to reuse water bottles. The plastic breaks down and contaminates the water.

[minime]

We use water from the tap stored in the fridge in hot weather.

It's bad to reuse water bottles. The plastic breaks down and contaminates the water.

I think the reuse issue is more bacterial. The plastic is so thin it gets brittle after only a few uses anyway.

[Wolfie]

I voted for straight tap water....but let me tell you about our water. We have a well. The well is 350 feet deep and it taps into a glacial stream. this water is ice cold and hard, but wonderful for drinking. Pure once you got used to it. When we first moved here at the beginning it gave me a few concerns, but now I can't drink anything else!

Now in Missoula, California, Massachusetts and Maine, I would not drink the tap water. Chlorine. We have no chlorine in our water at all here on our mountain.

Wolfie

[CJEP]

I drink bottled water more for convenience and the town I use to live in had some old issues with water and a paint company dumping decades ago. We do have a Brita filter pitcher and I'm considering washing out the bottles and filling them with the filtered water to save money and to not have to recycle so many bottles.

Did you hear on the news about Aquafina being tap water? I saw a preview of the news and they were going to talk about why they had to come out with the truth about their water.

Sorry, I had the wrong brand, but corrected it.

[Peggi]

We also have well water and drink it over ice. (We are southern, you know). We use bottle water when the electricity goes off for a long period of time or something happens to the well pump, pipe, etc.

We could hook up to the city water system, but it has such a chlorine taste that unless we have to, we'll stick with our well.

[TinyJudi]

I am not much of a water drink (I know..shame on me), but when I do drink it, it is tap with ice. I have to have it cold. I was raised on well water and now that I am on the city water table, it is hard to get used to it. I just flavor it with some coffee beans or a few tea bags.

[Irene]

I used to buy bottled water...but I haven't in quite some time...My reason for buying the water??? Well, call me superstitious, but the company I worked for had moved into a different building...and it seemed that after the move, so many people were getting sick...not just cold sick, but serious sick...ie: cancer...I was a little freaked out by it...then I saw one of our cleaning people, cleaning the water fountain...She had sprayed the fountain with her cleaner, which had a skull and crossbones on it...then haphazardly splashed water (from the fountain) on it to rinse it off...That was it...bottled water from me from now on!! I also had a problem with the tap water here at the time...I discovered that the funky taste was coming from an overabundance of mussels in the lake...I no longer work the the same company and the mussel population must have diminished so I figured why waste the money on buying water when I can get it for free out of my taps...the bonus? saved money and less impact on the environment...

[TinyJudi]

I should have asked him prior to taking the poll, but it is ok. He agrees with Mama.

[KathieB]

Tap water ... our municipal water consistently tests out as some of the best in the country.

[heidiiiii]

I have been drinking from the tap since birth...in the same city. I think that is part of the reason why my teeth are so good. They have been flouridating (sp?) the water for decades. I have a grand total of 4 fillings! And I am 38 yrs old! At one time I didnt have any dental insurance so I hadnt been to the dentist in 6yrs. When I was finally able to go and get a cleaning (it took 1 hr!) they were amazed. Not one cavity.

Chelsea has a thing about bottled water. Too much plastic waste. So we save bottles, wash them good and re-fill them with tap water.

[Marlene]

With all the boil water warnings around here it's bottled only. Let alone the fact that you always have to clean out your screens on the taps because they get clogged with unknown little objects trying to get out!

[wenlaine]

We have a distiller and DH hooked it up so that it pumps upstairs and through its own tap at the kitchen sink which he installed. You would never drink tap water here in Ontario unless you had a death wish.

[Lisa_F]

bottled water only. Before we moved to this house I always drank tap water - whole family did. Can't stand the smell/taste of the water here - dh & kids liked it but I never did get used to it in all the years we've lived here - not for drinking anyhow.

And I always drink my water room temperature - another thing my family thinks I'm strange for just tastes better to me that way.

[aggiemae]

In Israel our tap water is a bit salty, so we drink bottled water. here our water is snow runoff and very good, but to much chlorine in summer so we use filter and let it sit out to let the chlorine dissipate before we drink it. Our dogs, however, only drink bottled water because DH has a deep held belief that fluoride is bad for them. He also spends 4 house a week during his scarce time off making dog food... Yikes! My family sounds lots more weird in writting that we actually are in person. REALLY!

[kellee]

We drink tap water but it goes thru a filter in our refridgerator that also cools it.!!

Kellee

[lumberjacksgurl]

Just poured myself a glass of bottled water. Here the town is on an artesian well but it is in a swamp of sorts and has had cracks in the pipes. With my immunosuppression, I cannot take the chance of contamination, would make my one drug for it at $3900 a month worthless. So I get the big cooler bottles and recycle faithfully to minimize the environmental impact.

THe colder that water the better, where I used to live, we had glacial water and it was to die for!!!!

[doogster]

Brita filtered tap water, we have to vinegarize the kettle way less with this water to get rid of build-up, that's good enough for me.

[havanaholly]

Our 300+' deep well goes directly into the West FL Aquifer so other than a bit of calcium our water is wonderful straight from the tap. When we first moved in we had thiophylic bacteria (made the water smell like old eggs & leave a yellow sediment in the bottom of the bottle when we let it settle) from the well when we first moved here and, as we share the well with our nextdoor neighbor, I asked about it. Turned out it was a problem with our pipes, even though people had been renting the house for almost a year when we bought the house they had apparently never flushed the pipes. We have had no problem since, although we get occasional rusty sediments.

I have been using the same plastic orange & red grapefruit juice bottles from Publix for many years for our water to chill it in the fridge, washing them whenever they start to get sediment, and we have no brittleness. I did have one develop a split in one corner, I have since learned to let the water drain out more slowly when washing them, so that no vacuum forms. Between DH & me we drink about 5 - 6 liters of water a day.