Tap water or bottled water

[Lara96]

I need to try drinking more water but obviously bottled water everyday is expensive so does everyone drink tap water.

Our tap water is vile. It smells like bleach, so no I don’t drink it! I have to filter it before I even boil it.

I decant tap water into a glass bottle and store in the fridge.

Absolutely drink the tap water in Scotland. I could understand in London (sorry Londoners) but Scotland has great tap water everywhere.

Some areas have very hard water which leaves a lot of scale, making it not that nice to drink. In our area the water is fairly soft but we sometimes notice it’s heavily chlorinated. I’d filter rather than buy bottled though.

I use tap juice and never buy still water, however I buy the fizzy stuff in 500ml bottles. Nothing like a fizzy and elderflower cordial + ice.

Always drink tap water unless I'm out and need to buy a bottle. I avoid Evian tho, it tastes weird.

I drink tap water (mainland UK, if it makes a difference), but know that people on a particular island off mainland UK filter their tap water before drinking.

Bottled water is expensive and terrible for the environment.

Tap water in uk

Yes, I always drink tap water because...
It is safe and tastes fine (London).
I've paid for it via my water bill so it would be a waste of money to purchase separate water.
Plastic bottles are bad for the environment (yes, even recycling them has a negative environmental impact).
The production and transport of the bottles and water are bad for the environment.
I don't want to drink drinks which have been stored in plastic.

What do you think of the taste of your tap water?

I much prefer most mineral water but I drink tap water because it’s an easy environmental win. Some people on this thread seem to be kidding themselves a bit that if they recycle there is no environmental impact, there’s still the impact of the production of the bottles, transport of the heavy bottles and then of collecting and recycling them all of which uses fossil fuels. That being said I do drink fizzy drinks that come in plastic bottles so I’m not in a position to be too preachy about it.

I keep my tap water in glass bottles or a ceramic/ glass jug in the fridge at home and use a steel water bottle when I go out. I think it tastes better than if it’s kept in plastic.

If you are the kind of person who isn’t going to manage to drink tap water because you hate it so much then it will have to be mineral water or you’ll have to add some squash.

Got lovely tap water here so we drink it.

So I'm a southerner and my husband is Scottish. He swears blind he can tell the difference between tap and bottled water. I blind tested him with several different bottles and tap (we live in Surrey). He knew straight away. He still drinks bottled water a lot but I'm okay with tap, though we have a filter jug. He's happy with Scottish tap water so it's probably region dependent.

What? YES. Of course! I have a couple of glass bottles in my fridge. I fill them with council lemonade every day

Get drinking it, it’s some of the best tasting tapwater in the country!!

I didn't realise people in the UK didn't drink tap water!! It's just normal isn't it... add some squash if you don't like the taste. Buying bottled is insane when we have the system we do. In Scotland especially where the water tastes nice, because lots of bottled water in the uk is basically just bottled tap water anyway (any that say "bottled drinking water" will be tap based- at best filtered, only mineral or spring water comes from elsewhere).

Actually, globally only 9% of plastic is recycled and in the UK its 17%. The rest is burned or sold overseas or landfilled. Plastic doesn't actually recycle very well unfortunately- people seem to think if they put it in their recycling, it'll all be fine. It doesn't work like that. Plastic can only be processed up to 3 times then it can't be used or recycled again. We need to stop using it. I'm not preaching/perfect because I use it too, it's hard not to - everything comes in it! I just hate when people don't realise where their rubbish goes, we are sold the recycling idea and spend ages separating into all our bins, but some things just don't actually recycle very well at all (plastic being one).

I am not saying all plastic gets recycled…
Our reality is that our tap water tastes so vile, it’s really our only option. Yes we use water bottles when out n about, but buy smaller bottles for visitors/delivery drivers/backup for the car blah blah.
For general at home drinking/tea & coffee (better for the machine apparently?!) we have the big 2l bottles.
Literally everyone we know locally does the same- because our tap water is undrinkable.
If I could buy water in cartons/glass for the same price I would, we just get through gallons of it unfortunately.

I prefer tap water over bottled… the bottles stuff has a weird taste. I have a big jug with a lid in the fridge, make ice and fill up an insulated bottle in the morning topping it up throughout the day.
DP used to spend a fortune on bottled water he drinks about 4L a day so that’s a lot of plastics waste. He’s now converted to iced tap water and loves it

I had a fight with my friend in Norway as she refused to drink the lovely fresh tap water as ‘you should never drink water from the tap abroad’

she was paying huge amounts for tiny bottles of water. The tap water was lovely she missed out

there is a difference in taste of water in the uk but a few ice cubes in and no one can tell the difference surely

Lots of these posts recently with OP posting a controversial view / question for debate and then disappearing shortly afterwards while the comments keep on coming for days. They then end up on FB as a public post, thereby recruiting new blood to MN. Am I cynical or is this part of the plan?

I cannot get over the taste of tap water. I tried filters but non works well enough for the taste to go away. When I'm going to have my kitchen redone I will have reverse osmosis filter fitted but till then bottled water only.
I don't drink much water anyway, I'm a very cold person and if I have too much water I feel even colder.

I drink tap water and I am happy with it, we also have a tap filter we can use of we want to. But Costco if you have a membership is probably the cheapest for bottled water. 48 bottles for about £4, people go crazy for it.

We find Costco far cheaper than any online or supermarket prices.

Tap water with dilute in. Cherries and Berries is my current favourite

We find tap water cheaper than Costco.