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?

I drink my bottled water at room temperature. I think that makes my carbon footprint lower than yours.

Last time I looked into this I learnt that the standards required for tap water were rather higher than those for bottled water, re. contaminants etc. Of course incidents can occur in the best run plant or bottler. If you have ever drunk distilled water you will know that pure H2O isn't actually very nice. It's the small amount of minerals that give water it's taste. I'm a Londoner and I think Thames Water is really nice, only topped by Herefordshire spring water. The taste of tap water is one of my determinants of where to live - when we were in Toronto the water was so chlorinated that I smelled of swimming pools after a shower, so no way was I going to be living there and drinking that water.

Here in the States the bottled water is mostly produced by Nestle, Pepsico or Coke and is distilled rather than spring, so we only buy in emergencies.

When we first moved here I did notice that the tap water tasted awful in my whisky - too much chlorine. Rarely drink whisky these days but when I do the water's fine. New water treatment works responsible for that I suspect. It tastes better with the slightly peaty water you get in parts of Scotland but even Scottish bottle water doesn't taste peaty so I'll stick to tap.

Orm - if you run the tap water and stood it in a jug for half an hour before using it most of the chlorine would evaporate

Uriel - I'll ask DH because he knows about it.

There is no water shortage in London - just a lack of means to obtain it. London is, after all, sat on a huge underground lake.

Orm - if you run the tap water and stood it in a jug for half an hour before using it most of the chlorine would evaporate

Uriel - I'll ask DH because he knows about it.

There is no water shortage in London - just a lack of means to obtain it. London is, after all, sat on a huge underground lake.

nooka you brought back memories! I used to live in Toronto. If I remember right the problem with the water is it comes from the falls which is really not nice water. They then put it through so much purification and add chemicals etc that it ends up being safe to drink but tasting foul.

And the best tap water I've ever tasted is here in the Midlands.

If you do buy, it seems that Sainburys basic still table water is best value. Same water factory as those that cost time times the price with more packaging

we used to get those big bottles of water for our cooler at work

an email came round asking if we still wanted it. lots of people said yes. I said no and started an avalanche...we now just have the (plumbed in) water cooler tap in the corridor (have to walk -ooh- at least 20m to get water) and no van deliveries. yay!

Water factory?

It's just tap water innit?

The standing and evaporation thing works for chlorine, but bear in mind that it doesn't work for the new additive which is chloramine. Perfectly safe for humans, but toxic to fish which is why fish keepers should always use a chlorine AND chloramine remover before adding fresh water from the tap into their tanks.

more info here

You have to check whether your local water board uses chlorine or chloramine.

(For drinking water, I use a brita filter jug thing, only take bottled drinking water with us when we go camping)

where can you get plumbed in filter?

Mine is an AMWAY one. It is a cartridge type thing that you fit to the pipe under the sink. You replace the filter block once a year. It beeps when it is almost ready to need changing. It has a battery for the beep system.

We use tap water straight from the tap. We use glasses, but my teenagers seem to stick their heads under the tap. I can't taste or smell any chlorine in it.

Bottled water is a stupid waste of resources.

As for filters, I was looking at some claims . One said it removed over 90% of heavy metals, hydrocarbons, chlorine etc. I'd be intrigued how it could do the heavy metals, but I guess that their 90% claim could mean just getting rid of the HCs (by using activated charcoal), having the chlorine remove itself in the running water, and the 10% that isn't removed would be any heavy metals. Metals are removed in the treatment works by precipitation, and the standards for passing the water are generally in the parts per billion range, so there's not a lot to worry about.

ST: I thought carbon removed quite a bit - I know I always have to be careful to remove carbon if I'm adding medication to my fish tank, otherwise it removes it all from the water. I also keep carbon out on a regular basis because otherwise my aquatic plants don't fare too well (it extracts all the good stuff).

The thing to watch with carbon is to make sure you replace regularly and on schedule. Because once it becomes "full" it then starts to leach all the bad stuff back into the water, defeating the object somewhat.

We weighed our used cartridge after allowing a few weeks to dry out, and compared it with the weight of a new one. It was about half a kilo heavier. So there must have been something in it.

I used to filter ours but then realised that all I wanted was for it to be chilled. We have hard water and it tastes fine, much the same as bottled water, which is a disgusting con.

when i first visited London, i was a smoker and so was the mate I was staying with.

he had a few Londoners friends around, all of them smokers.

i went to the tap and turned it on to get a drink of water.

they all were aghast that i was going to drink it, but i asked them how they could not drink the water when they were all filling their lungs with all that shite in Marlboros and Phillips Regal.

As I am in south wales I have gorgeous soft tap water, and all other tap water takes vile and metally to me, but I will still drink it. After a few days you get used to the taste.
I though tap water was stricter as well now whereas bottled could have loads of sodium/ flouride in with no problem

In fact I have only bought bottled water in teh last few days to see if DD would drink it as a novelty (one of those sports bottle things)

I bought 17 2lt bottles of water today (17p or so a bottle).

I do feel bad but we have no choice really as our water supply is pumped directly from a river with no filter.
We do use it for hot drinks (boiled for a few mins), but we can't afford to boil all water then cool it for drinking.