The water itself may be no better than water coming out of your kitchen tap.  At least one-fourth of bottled water is actually tap water (some estimates go as high as 40 percent).  And some brands contain chemical contaminants at levels above strict state limits.  If consumed over a long period of time, some of these contaminants can cause health problems.

Even if the water is pure, a plastic container may leach chemicals such as phthalates or bisphenol-A (linked to increased risk of birth defects, miscarriage, and prostate cancer) into the bottled water.  Scratches in the plastic, harsh detergents, and boiling liquids exacerbate the leaching.

Types of Bottles

For personal health, the ideal water container is glass.  However, glass bottles are rare, heavy, and breakable.

If purchasing water in plastic, find out what kind of plastic it is by looking on the bottom of the bottle (near the three-arrow recycling symbol).  It's best to avoid highly flexible containers and those made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), both known to leach plasticizers into bottled water.  If the recycling code is the number three, the bottle is made of PVC.  Polycarbonate bottles (PC, a hard plastic claiming to reduce plastic odor) are not a healthy choice, either.  Under some conditions they can still leach bisphenol-A and, with a recycling code of 7, are rarely recyclable.

The new bio-based alternative plastics, such as those made with corn starch (not really a plastic, but with similar properties) are problematic, too.  While reusable and readily biodegradable, bio-based plastics are usually made from genetically modified corn, and no one yet knows what such engineering does to human and environmental health in the long term.

The Solution

If you want to carry a water bottle around with you, think about using a stainless steel bottle, but make certain it doesn't have a plastic liner.  If you can't avoid drinking water from plastic bottles, make certain it has not been exposed to high temperatures, such as being left inside a locked up car or near a glass window.  Plasticizers become unstable when warm.

A Better Alternative

Why pay so much and get so little?  Instead of buying bottled water, use water filters at home and fill your personal non-plastic reusable bottle with filtered tap water.  Reverse osmosis combined with solid block carbon filtration removes most common contaminants.  Activated carbon/ion exchange filters (either faucet-mounted or pitcher filters) do a decent, though less effective job.  Such measures yield savings all around:

	Save 1.5 million tons of plastic from ending up in landfills.
	Get rid of contaminants normally found in tap water, such as chlorine, cryptosporidium, Giardia, lead, and pesticide runoff.
	Save money.  Where bottled water can cost 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water, filtered tap water costs as little as ten cents a gallon.
	Using filters at home is a safer health bet than buying bottled water.

First published by the Healthy House Institute, www.healthyhouseinstitute.com.