Bottled water - why?

At the moment I am in hospital and am amazed at how many 500 ml bottles of water are used at least three per person per day. Not only the cost but the recycling. No wonder the NHS is in trouble.

We now have Facebook and people follow the crowds. Being individual now seems to be a threat.

How did we manage all those years before bottles water was invented?

Generations have lived long healthy lives drinking tap water, what has changed to make bottled water preferable?

One star does it and then all the followers see it as a must do.

I suppose it’s one of the joys of living in the country - we have a borehole, as do most of our neighbours. Before that we had a supply well up the hill which provided the occasional tadpole as a treat. The trouble with a borehole is if the electric goes off, so does the water.

I get my tap water from United Utilites, It tastes OK.
I honestly think in general this bottled water fad is a clever money making venture.

I wonder if the drinkers of bottled water were tested on a double blind trial how many would actually know what water they are drinking.

freshlysqueezedwater.org.uk/waterarticle_watercontent.php

This tells you what is generally in your tap water depending where you live.
Be pleased the additives are in there they will probably save our lives . Cholera 1857 outbreak.
www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/abbey_row_

I use it for coffee machine & teasmade as we have very hard water & machines need replacing often - even though I use descaling products.
It tastes fine to drink though.

lemongrove No it was in West Oxfordshire - contamination with cryptosporidium in the 1990s. I remember the Camelford incident though and had friends who were affected by that too!

Like glammagran, I gave up drinking water from plastic bottles. In my case because I found I couldn’t drink it when I was pregnant, so I figured something from the bottle must be getting into the water. I later read that plastic can leach into water.

I didn’t buy bottled water though - or rather, I bought a couple of bottles and then used to refill them with filtered water.

I now do this with glass bottles. Stainless steel containers may be BPA-free, but toxic metals from them leach into liquids. (My doctor tells her patients not to use stainless steel saucepans.)

We bought a really large bottle of water for the boat as we don’t trust the onboard tank even with sterilising tablets. It was left on board for two weeks and when we went over last week there was green mound growing in it. I don’t trust bottle water!

I have DS who was a water quality scientist. Used to say stuff out the tap far superior to bottled, with all the bugs etc in it. The other issue is disposable plastic. No,tap water for me, occasionally buy fizzy for a change. Sometimes have a swig in Church as in choir, and incense used. Makes throat very sensitive.

Our refrigerator has a (2 filter) water dispenser for both ice and water. Water is safe to drink and tastes delicious. We have another filtration system under our kitchen sink, so we can drink water from the tap and use it to cook with as well.

Some of our neighbors think the water quality around here is OK, but we disagree. Untreated, our water sometimes has too much chlorine and other times it smells swampy. I suspect it has a lot of bacteria.

Together the (micron) filters eliminate bacteria, heavy metals etc. and the carbon improves taste. The only negative is that they need to be replaced every four months, but still much easier than schlepping bottled water all the time. We spend about $180 yearly on filters, slightly more than what we would spend on bottled water, but that also pays for the water we use to cook with, rinse vegetables with, etc.

Moved to Wales and found the water tasted 'different' to London. Miles better! And the kettle doesn't fur up any more!
I have a filter jug - which is never needed now - but do buy bottled water when away from home and driving around. The bottles fit the car's cupholders perfectly. The empty bottles either get recycled or are saved for a project.

Jocork was that the incident near Camelford?
I live in the Thames Water area, and although it doesn’t taste or smell of chlorine at all, still tastes a bit unpleasant.
We use a filter jug, and that’s fine, makes a big difference and yes, we have done blind tastings.
Bottled water is a waste of money.

I am another who prefers fizzy water to still. I buy the supermarkets own (17p) and it's fine if it's been chilled. I drink a pint every few hours so a big bottle doesn't last long. I'd refuse to pay more for expensive 'spa' or 'mineral' waters. I don't like the trend for bottled water at all and do feel it's a rip off. We do of course recycle our bottles.

I also drink tap water. Ours tastes fine and I often bottle some if people are coming over for dinner as it tastes better cold. Oh and we too run the tap but have several large jugs on hand as we don't like to waste water. The plants in the conservatory/garden have it or we put it out for animals/birds if we've had a dry spell.

I don't understand why some people cart water everywhere with them or continually take sips throughout the day. It's just an excuse to stop working if you ask me and that includes kids at school. Unless there is a severe medical problem, everyone should be able to wait until their breaks and have a good drink. I certainly wouldn't buy bottled water unless advised to do when on holiday abroad, especially Evian. I don't buy anything French as they don't generally support our industries.

I have a medical condition that gives me a very dry mouth so I am never without a bottle of water. I buy a bottle of water in the smallest size available for ease of carrying. When empty I just fill from the tap. and it taste fine to me.

Tap water in London is NOT fine - it's full of lime and if it's not why do all the taps and kettles fur up after just about four weeks - too many people living outside London believing that the wonderful water coming from the Lake District is common all over the UK - it's not. The way to overcome the plastic issue is for everyone to have a proper water filter in their homes and to fill up stainless steel BPA-free bottles. In the normal tap water there are hormones that encourage breast cancer - fact, not a wild belief. If you look down the chain you can see this in smaller organisms. So we all need to make a choice, pay out for a proper water filter around £300 and have a system that provides clean water all the time.

I keep a large tumbler of water on the side in the kitchen to drink. If you fill it with water first thing, by the time you need a drink....I tend to gulp down half a glass every other hour or so......most odours have evaporated. I then top it up again....and once again by the time I need it its been standing long enough to taste perfectly fine. Water in the UK is safe....lets just use it and be grateful we have it on tap!

I only drink sparkling bottled water - once I read that it had been through so many people and out the other end I had no stomach for tap water. In reality I never drank water at all except in an emergency until they bottled it. My dad lived to 81 and swore he had never drunk water in his life - he meant plain water though, he always added squash or whatever was available to stop it tasting of water, which he didn't like the taste of. ?
When my office got one of those fizzy filter taps I did manage to drink that at work - the fizz covered up the foul taste of the London tap water I think.

All I can say is that since moving to a different area, my stomach problem has gone. I'm sure it was the tap water.

Water round here is horribly hard, and when DD (and she drinks water rather than tea and coffee, as do many younger people) is here, we have bottled water in the house.

We live on our boat and have our own filtration system that filters water into our tank from the river that we float about on. We could drink it but never have - I’ve seen the spiders and coal dust that get accidentally swept down into the filler hole so we use 5 litre bottles of water from the supermarket. If we are lucky and can find a tap we refill them.

Meant tap water

I drank only bottled water for years but then stopped because of concern about plastic leaching into the water. Since we moved to Wiltshire the two water is tremendously variable; some days it’s fine and other days revolting. Haven’t tried a water filter however