Bottled Water Is Not Good For You Or The Planet

Alarming reports have been made saying that tap water is no longer safe to drink so various kinds of water filters have been available in the market. However, there are many of us who don't trust the effectiveness of water filters and still choose to go for the other alternative- bottled water.
Many of us are easily deceived by the TV and print ads that we see about bottled water. Bottled water companies claim that their products are free from impurities and safe for drinking. Just how true are these clams?
The common types of bottled water are distilled, sparkling, spring and mineral water. Recent studies agree that they are clean but not nct necessarily safe. Some bottled waters have a great amount of fluoride exceeding what's recommended for children and could cause teeth mottling. Some bottled waters have more than 10 mg/liter of sodium which is detrimental to people with heart and kidney problems and those who are hypertensive. There's no manufacturing date on most bottled water so you have no idea how long the water has been in the bottle. Some studies have shown that leeching of the plastic bottle's chemical components into the water happens more with time. Some bottles may still contain bacteria because they don't normally undergo the high-heat sterilization available to glass bottles.
Environmentalists have been trying to inform everyone that plastic bottled water is bad for the planet in a number of ways.
1)According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86% of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States become garbage. These plastic bottles are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and some are from polyethylene terephthalate and will take thousands of years to decompose. Plastic bottles that are incinerated spews toxic by-products the requires costly processing and "filtering" before being dumped to the atmosphere.. In 2004, an Italian consumed almost 184 liters of bottled water in a year. In the same year, it is 169 liters for a Mexican and 137 liters for a Spanish. The 26 billion liter-record of Americans cannot be discounted. The popularity of bottled water continuous to grow so just imagine the number of plastic bottles that has to be produced to meet the needs of the world and the huge mountain of garbage it will amount to.
2) The polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate is a plastic obtained from crude oil.. Just the making of bottles for American consumption alone needs more than 1.5 million barrels of oil yearly. Then there is the oil burned to power the entire bottle making process.
3)Bottled water is transported by trains, trucks, airplanes and trucks that run on fossil fuels and emit exhausts. The data gathered by Earth Policy Institute in 2004 states that a Helsinki company shipped 1.4 million bottles of Finnish tap water 4,300 kilometers (2,700 miles) to Saudi Arabia. I would hate to foot that gas bill.!
If you frequent the supermarket, you'll notice that bottled water also costs more compared to some basic commodities like milk. At $2.50 per liter on average, would you be willing to buy an overpriced bottled drinking water which could be bad for you?