9 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water Today
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Here’s a fun fact we bet you didn’t know – in India, 13.3 billion liters of bottled water was purchased in the year 2017! That’s worth Rs. 14,200 crores (1)! It’s safe to say then that India is a country that likes its water straight out of the bottle. Or at least, urban India surely does as that’s the demographic that’s behind these alarming statistics!
Why alarming? Well, because drinking bottled water is a crime to your health. A crime, unfortunately, that all of us are guilty of. However, it’s still not too late to stop drinking bottled water.
In fact, here are 9 scary reasons that’ll make you ditch the bottle forever right now!
1. Plastic Bottles Leak Chemicals
If you keep a plastic bottle full of water out in the sun for a long time and then hold it, it’ll become softer and after a point, start to melt! This can give your water a plasticky taste and make it unfit for consumption. In fact, the chemicals in the plastic bottle can actually leak into the water and contaminate it (2). The worst of these chemicals is BPA, which is known to affect the brain development of infants.
2. Most Bottled Water Is Actually Tap Water
You might think that bottled water is filtered and purer as compared to tap water but it’s really not. This is especially the case considering that bottled water companies actually source their H2O from ordinary taps rather than the clean sources they’ll have you believe. A study published in TODAY revealed that 25% of the bottled water in the market is just tap water that has been sealed (3). And you thought it was filtered and clean!
3. Tap Water Might Be Healthier Than Bottled Water
For water to become tap water, it has to meet quite a few standards and adhere to multiple rules and regulations. Bottled water doesn’t have to go through any of this to qualify as bottled water. In fact, there are high chances that bottled water might include more harmful chemicals than tap water. So, since you don’t know for sure if bottled water has been treated, you’re better off drinking tap water.
4. There Are No Benefits Of Drinking Bottled Water
Health is the reason most people commonly cite to justify their preference of bottled water over tap water. However, bottled water being healthy is a big myth! According to the National Resources Defence Council, there’s no concrete evidence that bottled water is superior to tap water in anyway as per the results of their 4-year review (4). So apart from purchasing a pretty bottle, you get little else with bottled water.
5. Plastic Bottles Harm The Environment
Apart from not being good for your health, bottled water is not beneficial for the environment as well. Instead, it’s quite destructive! The Pacific Institute states that in order to meet the very high demand of bottled water, nearly 17 million oil barrels are used every year in their production and this does not even include the energy cost for transportation (5)! The non-renewable resources of the earth will get depleted a whole lot faster if we continue this way.
6. It Also Leads To A Lot Of Waste Material
If you ever look into one of those big-walled dump yards in your locality, you’ll see that it is full of PET bottles. PET is a type of plastic that is used to make thin and transparent water bottles. Landfills all over the country contain huge amounts of PET bottles too, which can lead to a lot of chemical waste and even threatens the flora and fauna of the country. Luckily though, these bottles can be recycled.
7. Bottled Water Is Costly
You can argue that you have to pay for water anyway, so why not just get bottled water? Here’s the thing, the water bill you pay is just a tiny amount for huge quantities of water. Try getting bottled water in the same quantity and you’ll actually end up spending a lot more! 100 kiloliters of water will just cost you Rs.100, while packaged water costs Rs.20 per liter (6). You do the math.
8. Packed Water Leads To Water Wastage
To produce bottles for packaged water, a lot of extra water is needed. This amount can be actually larger than what the bottle can contain. The NPR states that to produce one plastic bottle, 6 to 7 bottles of water are needed (7). So, why not just get water from the tap instead?
9. Tap Water Is Much Safer
As we mentioned before, municipalities exercise tight control over the water that is sent out to taps in every household. They ensure the water is safe and can be consumed without any concern. However, if you are still worried, boiling tap water will be safer than purchasing packaged water.
Do yourself and the environment a favor and stop having packaged water. It won’t do you any good. Instead, get a filter installed at home if you want the cleanest, purest water.
