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Bottled water

My family has come to a consensus that Aquafina tastes like dirt. Also, much of it comes from "PWS" or "Public Water Supply" which means it's bottled tap water.

I myself like Poland Spring and Dasani. Dasani is cool too because it has the blue bottles.
 
Dasani is the best "normal" water, Fiji and Smart Water are the best, but they cost a little extra.


Smart Water has the coolest bottles too
 
I agree that bottled water can be expensive. Most of the time I buy one of the big multi gallon containers from the supermarket and keep it in the fridge. I just make sure it's spring water and not purified water. I get the smaller bottles if I'm out somewhere and need water.
As far as all water being the same, it's true that they are all two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, the difference is what else is in the water. I just don't completely trust municipal water, even if it's been run through a filter. It just doesn't seem right to drink water that has been flushed down someone's toilet and gone through the sewage system. I've read articles about scientists testing water and finding traces of different types of medications in it, including estrogen :eek: that either was flushed down the toilet when someone wanted to get rid of old pills or came out in someone's urine. Apparently these things can't be completely cleaned out of the water with the conventional purification process. I'll have to see if I can find the link to this. It's fascinating and rather frightening.

Edit: Here we go. Here's one article that is quoted from the Vancouver Sun:
http://www.thenhf.com/articles_54.htm
And this one is from the University of Arizona website:
http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/july00/feature1.htm
 
Every so often I will buy a large bottle of water (whatever is cheapest) and use the bottle everytime I go out by filling it with tap water. This usually works for about a month or so before the bottle breaks or I lose it. I suppose I should just buy a real water bottle.
 
I don't drink to much bottled watter, just after a run/biking and I see a coke machine so Dasani.

I drink tap water other wise, for a year or two we had one a water cooler in our house. 5gal tank every couple of weeks. pretty good water.
 
The water that goes through the sewers does not go back to the water supply, unless you count evaporation, rain, and ending up back in a resevoir or spring.

The typically go to treatment plants and then into rivers or the ocean (which is not the best, but it does not get re-used for drinking water).

In some places, where water is more scarce, they use "grey water" for irrigation and such.
"Any water that has been used in the home, except water from toilets, is called graywater . Dish, shower, sink, and laundry water comprise 50-80% of residential "waste" water. This may be reused for other purposes, especially landscape irrigation."

But the filtering used for tap water is the same if not higher than that used for bottled water.

And the energy costs for bottled water are ridiculous:

According to a 2001 report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year.

Besides the sheer number of plastic bottles produced each year, the energy required to manufacture and transport these bottles to market severely drains limited fossil fuels. Bottled water companies, due to their unregulated use of valuable resources and their production of billions of plastic bottles have presented a significant strain on the environment.


If you really like the taste of filtered water, use tap with a filter or Britta pitcher, a refillable bottle (like SIGG or Nalgene [yes, there are issues with some of the plastics, I know], and save lots of money and lots of plastic.

All that being said, if I am going on a flight and can't bring that with me, I like Evian or Fiji. :D
 
Just Volvic for me :) I can't drink other brands unless they're very cold (masks the taste).

Oddly enough I like the bottled water from Germany and Poland. I get my folks to bring over a crate when they're out on the mainland.
 
I like Evian the best. I drink bottled water exclusively; I hate the way our tap water tastes (it comes from a man made lake, super nasty, used for boating and such. Blahh!).

I want some Voss water! :(
 
the best water i have ever drank was fresh spring water in wyoming.

it looked some-what like this
pho004.jpg


I was hesitant at first because i didnt know it was a spring but a guy convinced and we lived off that (camping) for about a week.
 
Evian spelled backwards is naive. :)

I like like Volvic for the taste.

Some have mentioned resource waste. In my case, I would be drinking soda instead. I think water is better for me. Plastic bottle for soda or water. In either case it is a plastic bottle (or sometimes can for soda).
 
Currently, I prefer San Pellegrino and Gerolsteiner. I prefer carbonated water. If only I could get my filtered tap water to fizz, I'd be a very happy fizzy filtered tap water drinker. :)
 
I suspect that before too long, Americans will kick the stylish, bottled water habit. Don't expect it to happen overnight though.

If you've traveled in the south west, then you've probably seen those lovely signs, displayed over the sinks in gas station bathrooms that read, "water not potable", or "water not fit for human consumption". For this, I believe it is acceptable to buy a bottle of water. Better still, plan ahead, and fill up some bottles before you leave. Stick them in a cooler with some ice and you should be fine. This is when saving some of those poland spring bottles can come in handy. You can even buy those fancy "exercise bottles" or even canteens at places such as REI.

The question remains; What to do with those millions of plastic bottles? What I'm asking is, what can that plastic be used for?
 
WillJS said:
I like Evian the best. I drink bottled water exclusively; I hate the way our tap water tastes (it comes from a man made lake, super nasty, used for boating and such. Blahh!).

I want some Voss water! :(
Click to expand...

I might want to correct that. Waste water in the US is cleaned and disinfected and then put back into rivers lakes or pump back under ground. It is cleaned to the point that it is safe for humans to drink. Now when it put back into nature some other things happen to it that conitune make it cleaner.
Now down stream another city is going to be pulling suface water from the river and using it. They of course clean it filter it and a long list of things. Something the city I live in does is it pumps it waste water into a this lake things and about 3 years later it is back to where they pull surface drinking water from.

Now here is a kicker on bottle water. For the ones most people buy they pay $4 to a gallon. Tap water cost $0.0025 per gallon. yes 1/4 of a cent and it is very safe for public drinking.

Taste on water does depend on the source. Here I filter the tap water before I drink it because I can not stand the taste. Most other cities the tap water I find just fine.
On intersting study that did is a huge part of bottle water "tasting better" is because people think it does. In double blind taste test people could not tell which was bottled and which was tap or even filter tap.

Now I will say I do like some bottle water but it is only something I get for longer trips. is water from some sourse in Europe that I like. The water is the softest it can be made. The mineral content is exactly that along with some disinfected. Chlorine (Cl2) is a great disinfected because of it residue effect. It will stay in the system longer so it can be pipe or move to a new location. You do not want to drink water that has not be Chlorinated. It been a long time since I took environmental engineering and even thing the details of this stuff was fuzzy. I do understand the basics of it.

Now something you do not want to drink is distiled water. It is way to pure for our systems. It can and will kill you if you drink to much because it has no minerals in it so it will suck the minerals from your body. The high in bottle water people like does pull minerals out of your body because of how little in them. Just not like distiled that suck them in very quickly.
 
I forgot to add about the more of an illision of bottle water tasting better. I happen of bought a large bottle of Voss before I drove back to college because I though the glass bottle looked cool and wanted it. Plus the water did taste really good.

The kicker is I will fill up the bottle with Brita filtered water and leave it in the fridge. Mostly because some nights I will put it by my bed. A friend of mine who is a water snob and only drinks the high end stuff saw a half full Voss bottle in my fridge when she was looking for something to drink. She never had Voss before but though it looked high end plus it came from europe so she figured it was good. She ask me if she could have some. I kept a straight face and just told her yes. She drank it and comment on how good it was and I started laughing. It blew the cover and I told her it was just brita filter tap water. That did end her days of being a true water snob.

As for fuji water some people here have said the like. I personally do not like it. I do not like water that has a basic taste to PH of water that high.
 
i'm a fan of poland spring, smartwater, vitamin water if you want to call it water. panna is also good. fiji is good for special occasions ;)
 
I'm not a big water drinker, but of the bottled water I've had I like evian the best; it reminds me of the taste of snow...mmmmm.

That said, I prefer distilled or RO if given the option, usually slightly below room temperature. I hate cold water.
 
I actually enjoy Aquafina water.

However, I tend to drink local bottled water (There's a few small springs around here where you can grab water, and one big one owned by the company that sells the bottled water) most of the time.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
You do not want to drink water that has not be Chlorinated.
Click to expand...

Sure, chlorine is great for killing bacteria in the water before you drink it, but the problem is that our intestines are full of good bacteria that help to digest our food. When we drink chlorinated water the chlorine can't tell the difference between the good bacteria and the bad. Studies have linked the consumption of chlorinated water to some types of cancer.
So if you have to drink tap water, at least run it through a filter first.
 
Stampyhead said:
Sure, chlorine is great for killing bacteria in the water before you drink it, but the problem is that our intestines are full of good bacteria that help to digest our food. When we drink chlorinated water the chlorine can't tell the difference between the good bacteria and the bad. Studies have linked the consumption of chlorinated water to some types of cancer.
So if you have to drink tap water, at least run it through a filter first.
Click to expand...
The chlorine used to purify water dissipates long before you have the chance to drink it.
 
I'm with you. I dislike the AquaFina and Dasani stuff, and much prefer Fiji and Evian. We have a Britta so we don't buy much bottled water, though.
 
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