Bottled water vs. tap water

Water is an essential part to human life. We as humans need around eight to twelve cups per day to make up for the fact that throughout normal functions such as breathing and sweating we lose an average of ten cups per day. To make sure that we are healthy and everything runs properly, we must make sure we drink the right amount of water (msnbc.com, 2004). The one question when thinking about water is what type of water will you drink? The biggest controversy is bottled water vs. tap water. Many people in the world today are switching from drinking tap water to drinking bottled water. The number of people who drink bottled water has been rising over the past few decades and by an average of 7% per year. A
Another way to look at this is that the energy costs required in the lifecycle of a bottle of water is equal to filling up each individual bottle a quarter full of oil (thinkoutsidethebottle.org). Car trips to the store also contribute towards the increase in fossil fuel usage and pollute air quality. The FDA does not mandate that watersheds be protected from companies drawing water but the EPA does mandate that municipal water suppliers protect their watersheds. The water treatment plants produce waste and consume energy and resources to power the plant and to treat and filter the water (sfdph.org). Bottled water companies impact local communities also. These companies travel across the US and around the world to find locations, often smaller towns like those in northern New England, where they can start mining for water. It is here that huge amounts of water are extracted from local springs and aquifers. This causes wells and springs to dry up, wetlands to deplete, and rivers to drain. This has serious implications on the local ecosystems and many are lost forever because of the overdrawing of water. If these large bottled water corporations are not taking the water from any of these sources they are most likely taking it directly from your local tap water (thinkoutsidethewater.org). I first learned about this in our class and I had no clue this was what