Is Tap Water Or Bottled Water Good For Your Health?

Many decades had passed have we really thought of the benefits of tap water and bottled water? Is it harmful or helpful for us?

Tap water, which can be hard or soft, goes through many stages of processing. First, all dirt and other particles are removed through coagulation. Alum and other chemicals are added to attract the dirt particles, which then sink to the bottom. The water then passed through filters and layers of sand, gravel, and charcoal to remove even smaller particles. A small amount of chlorine is added to kill any bacteria or micro-organisms and placed in a closed tank or reservoir. It is then carried to homes through pipes.

While bottled water comes from springs, more than 25% of bottled water comes from the municipal supply. Natural mineral water and spring water is bottled at the source and may not be subject to any processing except the introduction of carbon dioxide. However, some bottled water comes from other sources, including municipal supplies, and can be treated with UV light to kill bacteria, filtration, and ion exchange to get rid of excessive minerals. No residual disinfectant is included.

Environmental Impact

Water bottles are made from virgin petroleum, a fossil fuel, and fossil fuels are burned to fill and distribute the bottles. According to Food and Water watch, the plastic in these bottles needs up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. According to the Container Recycling Institute, less than 20% of bottles are recycled, and bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste each year.

There are various reasons why plastic water bottles are specifically harmful to the environment aside from plastic water bottles are made from petroleum products, recycling plastic bottles is also a difficult process and in many cases waste from plastic bottles ends up being discarded in landfills where they ultimately make their ways to parks, rivers, and oceans. Further, the process of manufacturing plastic requires a large amount of water, averaging 2 gallons of water per bottle created.

And on tap water is significantly cheaper and more environmentally friendly than bottled water. Drinking eight glasses of bottled water a day for a year can cost over $2,000. Drink that same amount from the tap, and you can expect to pay closer to 73 cents for the whole year.

Tap Water Has Less Waste

The most obvious benefit to drinking tap water vs bottled water is that it creates no waste and helps you go single-use plastic free. On the other hand, 373 million plastic bottles end up in Australian landfill every year. While we’re talking about waste, did you know it takes 3L of tap water to produce one litre of bottled water? It sounds outrageous, but it’s the truth. Drinking tap water stops you from creating more plastic waste as well as wasting water in the process. 

Better For The Environment

There are so many ways that tap water is better for the environment than bottled water. Firstly, bottled water takes anywhere from 1-2,000 times the amount of energy to produce as tap water. When you consider bottle manufacturing, filling, shipping, and keeping water cold in fridges, it’s easy to see where the energy is going. At the same time, plastic water bottle manufacturing released more than 2.5 million tones of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2006. Compare this with tap water, which released none. 

Chemical-free

If you like your water without toxic chemicals, it’s best to stick to tap. Most plastic water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate or PET, which can leach chemicals into water over time (especially when a plastic bottle is being reused). PET is also hazardous to the environment due to the various toxic chemicals that are released in the manufacturing process. 

Tap Water Is More Safer

This will come as a surprise to many people, but bottled water isn’t actually ‘safer’ or ‘healthier’ to drink than tap water. In fact, tap water is even safer to drink than bottled water thanks to stringent regulations and safety standards set out in legislation. These standards identify contaminants, chemicals, and microorganisms that can be present in tap water and set a safe limit. Additionally, tap water is also tested more regularly than bottled water, making it a slightly safer option. 

Drinking Bottled Water Can Cause Development and Fertility Issues

While more manufacturers are choosing to sell BPA-free plastic water bottles, it is still a common component found in water bottles made from Type 7 plastic. One of the many problems with BPA is that it acts as a faux-estrogen, and when consumed in water through leaching plastic it can cause a variety of chromosomal abnormalities that have been tied to birth defects and developmental disabilities in children. Exposure to the estrogen in BPA can also cause decreased fertility in both men and women, and when children are exposed to BPA while in the womb this can lead to complications later in life such as hyperactivity disorders, early-onset puberty, and an increased risk for certain cancers. It is then often recommended that women do not drink bottled water (particularly water from Type 7 plastic bottles) when pregnant.

Lead to Weight Gain

If you have been trying to lose weight and nothing seems to work, you may be surprised to learn that your bottled water consumption could be to blame. Both BPA and BHPF have been found to disrupt the hormones in our bodies. It is the effect both a compounds have on the estrogen levels in both men and women that has been tied to weight management problems. Exposure to the compounds in plastic water bottles can ultimately influence the rate that fat is stored in your body and where fat is stored, which can cause weight gain and difficulty losing weight.

Correlates To Higher Disease Rate In Adults

Exposure to the toxins in plastic water bottles has also been linked to higher rates of disease as adults. It has been found that people who drink a lot of bottled water, and in particular those who had high concentrations of BPA in their urine, were three times more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, and were 2.4 times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than individuals with low concentrations of BPA in their bodies. Even BHPF, a compound which is now being used in many plastic bottles instead of BPA, has been found to have dangerous side-effects similar to that of BPA. Thusly, even as the plastic industry tries to innovate to make plastic bottles “safer”, it becomes more apparent that the safest thing to do is to avoid drinking bottled water whenever possible.

Conclusion

One of the primary reasons consumers continue to purchase bottled water regardless of the potential environmental impact is due to a perception that bottled water is higher quality, more pristine water; and there is a reason for this misconception. Most advertisements for bottled water depict a fresh stream or mountain spring in order to make it seem like their bottled water is purer than tap water or other brands of bottled water.

Although both tap and bottled water have pros and cons, tap water is generally the better option. It’s less expensive, more environmentally friendly, and less likely to contain microplastics.

Additionally, certain populations, such as those with compromised immune systems, may need to purchase certain kinds of bottled water or to boil tap water before drinking it.