Another reason why bottled water just sucks

I stopped providing bottled water over a year ago at Urbanfitt. There's still water but it's tap. I just think it's plain silly to pay for water that is held in toxic plastic and add to land fills with unnecessary waste.

I felt yet another victory against bottled water when I surfed my regular fitness and wellness sites for new info.

Today one of the headlines in the Globe was:

Bottled water has high level of bacteria, researchers find

"Another strike against bottled water.

New findings show that several types of bottled water sold in Canada contain high levels of bacteria, raising questions about the cleanliness and quality of bottling plants.

The health concerns add to the backlash against plastic-bottled water that has led several cities and school boards to impose bans.

Canadian researchers from C-crest Laboratories Inc., a pharmaceutical product-testing lab in Montreal, tested nearly a dozen brands of bottled water and discovered that 70 per cent had high levels of heterotrophic bacteria. The findings were presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.

“This amount of bacteria is alarming, as if we are ingesting a cup of culture,” said Sonish Azam, a researcher involved in the study who works at C-crest."



This is taken from the City of Toronto website:

"When we look at issues such as quality, monitoring and affordability, we see that bottled water doesn't always make the grade. For instance, some brands may be of excellent quality, but others can have inferior bacteriological quality. And all bottled waters are expensive. Another important fact: there are fewer government regulations to guide the bottle water industry. While bottled waters should meet the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality, monitoring requirements aren't as stringent as are those for tap water."

Recently, people have been talking about the carcinogenic affects of chlorine in water.



I visited Health Canada's website to find out what their formal position is on the risks of chlorine in water:

"Current scientific data shows that the benefits of chlorinating our drinking water (less disease) are much greater than any health risks from THMs and other by-products. Although other disinfectants are available, chlorine remains the choice of water treatment experts. When used with modern water filtration methods, chlorine is effective against virtually all microorganisms. Chlorine is easy to apply and small amounts of the chemical remain in the water as it travels in the distribution system from the treatment plant to the consumer's tap,This level of effectiveness ensures that microorganisms cannot recontaminate the water after it leaves the treatment plant."

But if you go to a plethora of other sites and sources you'll find information much more like this (taken from Alive.com):

"The major health issue regarding the chlorination of municipal water is that it exposes us to a variety of toxic chemicals called trihalomethanes (THMs), which are byproducts of chlorination. Studies have linked THMs to miscarriage and fetal malformations, and they may be also associated with an increased risk of stillbirths.

One of the most common of the THMs, chloroform, is classed as a potential cancer-causing agent. In public pools it has been measured at more than twenty times the level found in tap water. Little data exists regarding dermal and inhalation exposure routes to the chloroform body-burden from domestic and recreational use of chlorinated water."

Seems that it is generally agreed that the safest way to make drinking water safe is ozone sterilization:

"The first water treatment plant to use ozone for disinfection was installed in Ousbaden, Holland, in 1893. Today, after 110 years of usage, ozone sterilization is utilized in countries throughout the world including Germany, France, the US, Cuba, Japan, and Mexico."

Regardless, it is becoming clear we can't take our water safety for granted, bottled or tap. But at least the latter doesn't pack land fills and perhaps not even be as safe as we'd like to believe.