What's Best in Drinking Water Treatments?

Hazards of Bottled Drinking Water, Plastic Water Bottles & Chlorination

Should We Shift Our Water Drinking Habits Away from Bottled Water ?

Our water drinking habits sway with the media hype in the US. We go for what makes us healthier, younger, more attractive and are seduced in this way, by the bottled water manufacturers' advertising. Is bottled drinking water better than kitchen sink water?

Let's start with an independent four year study of the bottled water industry, completed in 1999 by the Natural Resources Defense Council^.1 The report of the results along with a petition to the FDA stated that there were "major gaps in bottled water regulation and that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water". The study's principal findings were that although most bottled water seems good quality, "some bottled water contains bacterial contaminants, and several brands of bottled water contain synthetic organic chemicals (such as industrial solvents, chemicals from plastic, or trihalomethanes - the by-products of the chemical reaction between chlorine and organic matter in water) or inorganic contaminants (such as arsenic, a known carcinogen) in at least some bottles".

Consider the water in the bottle and the bottle itself: how much do we know about the different plastics used to manufacture bottles? Many of them such as polyethylene terephthalate or PET, derived from oil, are purported to be non-toxic to water drinking.* There have been discussions on whether dioxins come from plastics and hence plastic water bottles, but according to John Hopkins researcher Rolf Halden there are no dioxins in plastics. However, he states the phthalates in plastics (PET is a phathalate) can leach into your water or food if the container is heated. "Phalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals".

Perhaps the answer is what another researcher of plastic drinking water bottles recommends, avoid the confusion over what kind of plastic bottle is safe and use glass bottles for your water drinking. And fill them with your kitchen sink water?

This leads us to the subject of the chlorination of our public drinking water in the USA. This law is in effect to sterilize and disinfect the water, eradicating all types of bacteria. This means both beneficial and harmful bacteria are killed. Chlorine also disinfects our blood when we drink chlorinated water, since our bodies are 80% water (and likewise disinfects pets' blood and plants' sap) which means many immune enhancing micro-organisms resident in the body are killed or seriously weakened. Continuous consumption leads to severely impaired immune systems in living organisms.

In a two year National Toxicology Program² study of chlorination effects on rats and mice, results showed carcinogenic effects of chlorinated and chloraminated water on female rats. The male rats were not affected, and neither were the male nor female mice. Note, since rats have similar endocrine systems to humans while mice do not, these results for the female rats are significant.

We're in age where we must challenge what we are told or see written, and do our own research to get at the facts. I recommend you research which drinking water treatment is safest for you and your family and change your water drinking habits accordingly.

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* Note, manufacturing of the PET is potentially harmful to us in another way, since it generates over 100 times the toxic emissions than making the same amount of glass. Also consider the mounds of plastic bottles which can take thousands of years to decompose in our landfills.

1 NRDC is an environmental action organization using law, science and millions of members to protect and ensure healthy environments. The Wall Street Journal says "NRDC is by many accounts, the most effective lobbying and litigating group on environmental issues." U.S. News & World Report says "NRDC's lawyers are said by eco-observers to know more about environmental law than the government does."

² The National Toxicology Program (NTP) was established in 1978 by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and is known today as the Department of Health and Human Services.



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