This headline says it all. In a new report published by Food and Water Watch [dot] com, Americans who consume bottled water are mostly drinking tap. That's right. According to the study, 64% of private label drinking water is nothing more than municipal tap water!
Well, it looks like you're better of drinking the tap! Just as they do in many countries across the world. But filter it of course!
"Many Americans have bought into the myth that bottled water is purer and healthier than tap water, largely because of the bottled water industry’s crafty marketing tactics — including targeting vulnerable and lower income consumers." Says Food and Water Watch who authored the report. The report goes on to mention that the entire bottled water industry has eclipsed soft drinks, and has subsequently created predatory marketing tactics to get Americans off of tap. Essentially, many of these mega corporations are reselling tap water under the guise as "filtered, high quality" bottled water to unsuspecting consumers. Most of these people could end up drinking the same quality product for so much less simply by turning on the tap!
Production of single-use plastic bottles comes with a very heavy environmental cost.
In addition to being unnecessarily expensive, use of "single-use" plastic water bottles comes with huge environmental impacts. As the environmental website Eco Watch mentions "The bottled water industry has an enormous environmental footprint, using about four billion pounds of plastic for packaging in 2016—which required an energy input equal to at least 45 million barrels of oil. For more information on how damaging these plastic water bottles are to our environment, check out our blog post "Why you should ditch single use plastic bottles."
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If you're convinced enough to give up consuming water from plastic water bottles, we highly recommend filtering your tap first. Our filter pitcher removes 2,000 more tap water contaminants than the leading filter brand. The Aquagear filter is made in the USA and removes lead, chlorine, and many other contaminants.