You’re Drinking Water What?In 2006, the U.S. sold 2.6 billion cases of bottled drinking water, according to Beverage Digest. This is equivalent to approximately $15 billion on in one year alone. Worldwide sales topped out at more than $35 billion. You’d think with all that water being consumed, that we’d all be really healthy! But are we?
Drinking pure water is one of the most important things you can do for your health. However, relying on the bottled kind to keep you hydrated is not the best answer. You may be paying premium prices for the products, thinking it’s better for you than your local water supply. The toll that it takes on the environment, not to mention your cash, is enormous. The mere fact that water is in a bottle is NOT an assurance of purity. In fact, about 40 percent of it is just regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment. Unfortunately metal antimony (a silvery white metal of medium hardness) has been found in many brands. The amount of antimony, that seeps into the water you're drinking depends on the manufacturer, and can be highly varied. One recent study looked at 63 brands produced in Europe and Canada, and found concentrations of antimony that were more than 100 times the typical levels found in clean groundwater (2 parts per trillion). It also found that bottles with the longest shelf life had even greater amounts of antimony present. Recently, water samples were collected from various manufacturers in various countries and allowed to sit on a shelf. After six months, the concentrations of antimony jumped by 90% in European brands and 19% in Canadian brands. The biggest offenders were packaged in polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, containers. What is PET? The majority of the world's PET production is for synthetic fibers (in excess of 60%). Bottle production accounts for around 30% of global demand. In discussing textile applications, PET is generally referred to as simply "polyester" while ‘PET’ is used most often to refer to packaging applications. The varying degrees of antimony present are believed to be affected by such things as exposure to sunlight, higher temperatures, and varying PH levels. Most municipal tap water, though generally far from pure, must also adhere to stricter purity standards and scrutiny than the bottled water industry. In one study, 1/3 of more than 100 bottled water brands tested for contaminants, were found to contain chemicals like arsenic and other carcinogenic compounds, at levels exceeding state or industry standards. Additionally, fluoride (a highly toxic bone poison that should be avoided at all costs) is usually present in both tap water AND filtered bottled drinking water.
The burden of all these plastic bottles on the environment shouldn't be ignored. These bottles mount up in landfills and litter countless streets and highways. They collect in huge sludge-like mixtures in rivers and oceans worldwide, killing wildlife wherever it is found. If it is allowed to continue to kill wildlife, you can bet there will be potential future problems for you and your descendants for a long time to come. Plastic pollution has even entered the food chain. It’s not just marine animals that are being affected. You too, are ingesting minute levels of plastics every day, which means you're exposed to a potentially deadly mix of plastic chemicals and additives, including:
Widespread Obesity, declining fertility rates, (and other reproductive problems), and Cancer are just a few of the possible side effects that plastics may be causing to your health. Children are particularly vulnerable to the dangers. Because they have lowered immunity, their systems cannot sufficiently combat the carcinogens. Babies are exposed to plastics from the moment they’re born. They are exposed to plastics in the hospital, given formula from plastic baby bottles, and then handed toys that are made of plastic too.
You can further limit your exposure to these dangerous plastic (and other) chemicals by filtering all of the water you and your family use on a daily basis. If you want to make sure your drinking water is safe, I recommend using a reverse osmosis filter, like I do, which enables you to rely on your own well or municipal source for safe, clean water and give up bottles for good. *Now, as if we weren't already in trouble, they've found prescription drugs in most all municipal drinking water, in various areas around the US. But how are they getting in our water sources? Most people think that it's from people putting pills down the drain. Its not, I assure you. The levels of prescriptive drugs they've found is from people urinating in their toilets and flushing them down. After you flush your toilet, the water is taken back to the resource where it is recycled back into drinking water. (pretty gross huh?) Sure they purify it for bacteria and all sorts of other things, but until now, they didn't know to check for drugs in it, so it's not being cleaned thoroughly. People who don't even take prescriptive drugs are getting them. Right now, levels are low so the risk is minimum. However, if this problem goes on without being addressed or fixed, levels could rise much higher. Top 10 Reasons for Drinking WaterRelated Pages
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