Bottled Is Not Better
Return to the Tap
Bottled water may be a quick and convenient way to get your water on the go, however there are many reasons why you should stop buying bottled water and start drinking tap water. Some of these include:
- Research shows that 40 per cent of the bottled water on the market is tap water
- Bottled water is subject to fewer guidelines and testing than tap water
- Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year
- Research shows that bottled water is not better for you than tap water
- Canadian municipalities must release their water test results to the public whereas bottled water companies do not
- Some bottles are made of plastic that contains chemicals like Bisphenol A, which can leach into the water and be harmful to humans
Better for You, Better for the Planet
- Make the environmental-friendly choice to drink tap water. Canadian municipalities and provinces perform extensive water quality tests that are carried out on a regular basis to ensure high quality water from water purification plants through municipal distribution systems.
- Carry a re-useable water bottle to fill up throughout the day. Stainless steel water bottles are lightweight, durable and reusable. They are also non-leaching and toxin-free.
- Bottled water is shipped a long way at considerable cost in terms of the production of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
- Plastic bottles are wasteful. Even though many municipalities recycle them, recycling takes energy and plastics can only be recycled a few times before they have to go to landfill (unlike glass or metal).
- There is growing concern over the leaching of carcinogens into water from plastic bottles. This concern applies equally to reusable water bottles and to other drinks packaged in plastic.
It Just Makes Sense
- Much of what is sold as bottled water is just tap water filtered by reverse osmosis. Reverse Osmosis will remove taste, odour, sodium and other minerals. But not other contaminants. So why not filter your own tap water, sourced in your own bioregion?
- Bottled water costs about as much as a bottle of soda or juice, which requires additional ingredients and processing, yet costs the same.
- If you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 dollars per year where the same amount of tap water would cost around 51 cents.
- 96% of bottled water is sold in single-size plastic bottles, which end up in city trash cans rather than recycling bins. The national recycling rate for all plastic bottles is about 23.1%.
- For those who feel tap water is less clean than bottled water, filters may be purchased. Buying filter cartridges once or twice a year is much more economical than buying bottled water each day. Bottled water is only required to be as good as tap water, not better.