The pros and cons of bottled water

by Dallas Spires

Bottled water is an interesting phenomenon. Water covers about 75% of our planet's surface and is recycled by the water cycle - evaporation, precipitation, and runoff (surface water, ice, etc.). However, much of the earth's surface water isn't safe for drinking. Water must be chemically treated to be "safe" enough to drink. This is the biggest argument for bottled water.

Most popular bottled water brands boast being from this or that natural spring. However, there are many types of bottled water, according to the FDA's "Standards of Identity" regarding bottled water: "artesian water" pulled from a confined aquifer; "fluoridated water" containing fluoride and usually marketed as infant or nursery water; "ground water" that comes from an underground source; "purified water" produced by distillation, reverse osmosis, or some other approved process; "sparkling water" that contains carbon dioxide; "spring water" from this or that spring occurring naturally on the earth's surface; "sterile water," for which I can not find any satisfactory definition; and "well water" from, of course, a well. No matter the kind of water in your bottle, you can be pretty sure it's cleaner than your city's tap water, which can contain, in addition to fluoride, any number of chemicals used to purify the water, such as chlorine, and different metal ions.

So, that's a definite pro of bottled water. It's safer, cleaner than your tap water. However, it is bottled in plastic, which is why there are expiration dates on the bottles. Plastic can release chemicals into the water, though the water itself is pure. At the same time, all that plastic from all those bottles (bottled water is a successful consumer product) creates a lot of waste. Yes, plastic can be recycled, but a lot of it isn't, and some nations that use bottled water do not recycle at all. And again, making up a good section of the retail industry, bottled water must be shipped from location to location to location, so on and so forth; that requires the use of a lot of fossil fuels through ground transportation.

In a time when our dependence on oil is on everyone's mind, is bottled water the way to go? A bottle of water at your local grocer, corner store, or other market costs much more than the same amount of water out of your tap. Though bottled water is cleaner, there are regulations regarding the quality of tap water, which are designed to ensure that it is clean enough for consumption.

Who would have ever realized that water was such a loaded topic? This day and age, there are a lot of issues to take into consideration when choosing between tap water and bottled water. Either way, you need water.