Water Wise

Trying to choose a good clean drinking water while remaining environmentally ethical can seem like an insurmountable challenge.  With so many types of water to chose from these days, choosing which water to drink can be much more difficult than it should be.  Pouring a glass straight from the tap no longer seems to be the only option it once was.  Our parents generation may have quite absentmindedly assumed that the tap water was safe, but nowadays with news of environmental pollutants, prescription medications, farm pesticides and host of other less than friendly additions swimming in our reservoirs, reaching for that old tap water feels somehow wrong.  On top of this the chemicals used to purify our water make one think of the old adage about the medicine being worse than the cure. 

With all of these difficulties surrounding the use of tap water, many of us had begun to opt for bottled store bought water which was sold to us as clean, pure and mountain fresh.  After a couple of decades of this though, now we have begun to question the health benefits of drinking water which has been stored in plastic containers.  Plastic, especially the kind in which most store bought water is contained, seeps into the water through time.  These bottles are of the polycarbonate kind, a type which leaches bisphenol-A into their contents.  Bisphenol-A can mimic the female hormone estrogen.  A growing amount of research has linked the increase in these hormones, even in low doses, to reproductive and developmental damage, breast cancer and prostate cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. 

This kind of bad news for water companies doesn’t seem to have greatly altered the way in which our water bottles are made.  Quite aside from the growing evidence that the water used by water companies is often not so much different from what comes out of the tap (approximately 25% of water sold in bottles is from the same source that flows into some community’s taps), the mounting scientific research that points to the health hazards of drinking out of plastic bottles is a grave concern.  Both of these facts should be enough to put these companies out of business, or at least force them to change their practices.  The problem, at least for the consumer however, seems to be that there is very little in the way of an alternative at this point.  Since we now see our tap water as to a certain extent polluted, and our bottled water as full of estrogen producing hormones, where are we to turn for our drinking water?

Aside from the health risks posed by drinking out of plastic, the environmental costs are also a cause for concern.  Transporting water across the globe in plastic bottles is certainly not an environmentally sound solution to our energy and carbon crisis.  Drinking and eating local is always the best means of keeping your conscience clean and green.  Hence while mineral water is generally stored in glass bottles and can therefore be safer than your plastic bottle varieties, this too often gets transported from one end of the globe to another.  An occasional glass of mineral water can therefore be a healthy choice and a great way of getting some of your essential minerals.  But, depending on where it comes from, the ethicality of transporting said water should make this a special treat rather than function as your main source of hydration. 

The best choice at this point probably involves buying a home water filtration system.  The great quality ones are obviously a hefty investment, but even the less expensive ones can still provide some protection.  Attaching a water filtration system to your tap will help at least clear out the major culprits in the tap water and, more importantly, will hopefully prevent you from drinking out of plastic bottles.  Investing in a small stainless steel water bottle which you can then fill from home will save you a great deal of money in the long run as well as saving the environment.