Consumers urged to stop buying bottled water

[eenybeeny]

here

we buy sainsbury's own brand bottled water because our tap water tastes awful and me and DS drink a lot of water. The area we live in has very hard water and it is not nice to drink. Do you buy water? What do you think about this?

Nestle are one of the top providers of bottled water, you might not be surprised to know........................

Pipes with lead in: Lead pipes arent a major problem, plus the calcification inside the pipes mean you arent going to be contaminated by lead by drinking the tap water.

The marginal cost isn't quite zero, because part of the bill is for 'processing/cleaning' water. Allegedly.

Did you know you could cut your water bill in half if you dig a sump in your garden and channel your 'waste' water into it for 'recycling'?

It's really quite fascinating that Nestle have built an empire from selling products that you can actually get 'on tap', isnt it?

The tap water can be vile where we are. You can actually smell it when the tap is running.

We filter our water, but still when you boil it you can smell the smell.

Fecking Anglian Water.

"NEW* from Nestle..........

Purified air in a tin. Clean, with added freshness and all pollution removed. Allegedly. To give you and your family the very best buy Nestle Fresh Air"

Disclaimer - this is not* a real advert.

A decent water filter takes out chlorine and practically all known contaminants - including live ones.

Bottled water can contain all sorts of germs, not to mention the waste in the collection and packaging, and all that plastic.

I bought a water filter about 12 years ago for around £100. I buy a new filter once a year for about £40. It sits under the sink, requires no power to run, and it makes my heavily chlorinated London water taste as good as any bottled stuff.

Bottled water has to be one of the most uuenvironmentally friendly products I can think of.

UN-ENVIRONMENTALLY.

Do you have a link for that VVVQV?

I also invested in a water softener about 8 years ago. It doesn't use any power either, just blocks of salt. I only need to use tiny quantities of soap, shampoo, washing powder etc. I have one tap in the kitchen that bypasses the water softener and goes through the filter, for drinking purposes.

There is an initial investment, but compared to the cost of bottled water etc, well worth it.

I only buy bottled water now if I'm on the go and have run out of our usual filtered water/cooled boiled water.

I often drink tap and last year I thought it tasted really off. Called water board and -guess what - there had been 'an incident' and I was advised to run the water for 2 HOURS to clear the pipes. It started coming through brown then. Then wouldn't tell me what had happened. Dh had v bad tum that day and said he'd had a pint of squash before going to work.

Did not give my ds a bath that night (he drinks alot of bathwater) and am very glad he was still into milk and not really drinkning much water. Sorry to rant and bore people, I was a bit peeved at the time.

Funny that it's considered newsworthy by the media that people should not be buying something which is freely available from the tap.

Agree with earlier poster that if you refrigerate UK tap water (in a bottle/jug) and then compare it with chilled bottled water, the vast majority of people will not be able to tell the difference between the two.

I sometimes buy bottled water and do prefer the taste. Our recycling includes plastic bottles so I always put the bottles in the recycling..

I do feel guilty about the distance the water travels so try to buy UK bottled water. However, I haven't noticed anyone campaigning about the cost of transporting wine from Australia or all the other foodstuffs that are shipped round the world. So is it ok to drink Australian wine but wrong to drink Evian water?

I use tap water in hot drinks but don't know how healthy it is. I've read that tap water has all sorts of residues of cancer drugs etc in it....also worry about how much chlorine and other chemicals are added.

I think there is a big difference in tap water round the country. my parents tap water tastes much better than ours.

i have a reverrse osmosis filter fitted to my incoming mains water - it provides clean water on tap, using no electricity as the filter relies on the water pressure to work. I have had it for 7 years now and would not go back to drinking tap water here.

We do occasionally buy 1/2 or 3/4 L bottles so that we can refill them from our filter tap as i firmly believe that the "you should not refill water bottles" con is put about by the companies sellng bottled water. of course there comes a point when they should be thrown to the recyclers but we get a few uses out of them first, when we are out and about.

My filter came from a company called Freshly Squeezed Water - the name amused me!

John Lewis (and I think Wilkinson as well) sell these cooler bottles in various sizes. Means you can still take your bottle of water out with you in your bag, but can safely re-use the bottle each time.

lol at those complaining about tap water taste and hardness - fancy a day somewhere that you have to get water from a stand pipe/well (if there is one) and carry it for miles.

hear hear, cupsoftea.

good. hope it catches on in these credit crunch times.

so totalchaos, cups of tea and chisgirl I take it you are not concerned about what might be in UK tap water? Are you happy for your children to drink water that has cancer drugs and goodness knows what else in? I genuinely worry about what chemicals etc. are in tap water. Obviously mains water is better than no water and standpipes - however I suspect mains water is not as healthy as we are led to believe...

I hope you don't ever drink wine that has been shipped in from overseas...or eat fruit and vege flown in from African countries. If we say that we don't want bottled water in our country maybe we should say no to all the other unecessary drinks and say everyone needs to drink tap water only..why is bottled water being singled out above all the other food and drink items that are shipped miles.

I suppose bottled water is being "singled out" because it comes out of the tap here - if wine came out of the tap then that would be a whole other debate

Link to which bit Uriel?

Katebee - because the impact of deriving water from other sources, spending thousand of pounds on carbon-footprint stamping fuel for something that is perfectly adequate and comes out of the tap. I dont know what other drinks you think come from miles away? Coca Cola and other drinks from that brand - should you like it - is made about 2 miles away from me in North London (next to the Thames Water Utilities water processing plant - as it happens!!!)

The stuff that you get in mains tap water is sterile. It may have other components that may be less desirable to you based on sporadic research into it. It cant be more harmful than the carcinogenic chemicals that leach out of the plastic bottles that contain water (which again - leave a pretty huge carbon footprint) compared to tap water.

Flying in fruit and veg from other countries? Or eating it here...I take it you'd only eat organic if you drink bottled water? And that you'd rinse your fruit and veg in the bottled water so as not to "contaminate" it?

i buy bottles sparkling water but if anyone has a suggestion for making my tap water safely fizzy then I am all ears

Soda Stream?

re 'cancer drugs and whatever else'

I'm assuming that you think this is going to happen because people take, 'cancer drugs' and then pee and that pee enters the rivers etc?

If so, stop worrying. Water from reservoirs has fallen as rain. When rain is formed only the water evaporates and forms the clouds. the solid stuff gets left behind, and this isn't water board spin, this is science.

Unlss you have large numbers of cancer patients urinating in your reservoirs, or your water tank, you have nothing to be wrried about

re 'cancer drugs and whatever else'

I'm assuming that you think this is going to happen because people take, 'cancer drugs' and then pee and that pee enters the rivers etc?

If so, stop worrying. Water from reservoirs has fallen as rain. When rain is formed only the water evaporates and forms the clouds. the solid stuff gets left behind, and this isn't water board spin, this is science.

Unlss you have large numbers of cancer patients urinating in your reservoirs, or your water tank, you have nothing to be wrried about

Ah, MB - you appear to have 'pissed' on her parade