More Reason to Drinking Bottled Water

By Daniel Miessler on March 10th, 2008: Tagged as Environment

I took quite a bit of flak for my recent post where I defended my choice to drink bottled water when traveling.

My reason was simple: the quality of the water in random locations tends to be pretty bad — at least from a taste standpoint. And if it tastes that bad, e.g. like chlorine or sewage, then I figure there’s a decent chance it might not be good for me.

Well, as if on cue, the Associated Press just released a study today that show’s how there are trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the tap water of many cities. Some highlights from a CNN article:

Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.
Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
A sex hormone was detected in the drinking water of San Francisco, California.
The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

Right. Nothing wrong with that good ol’ tap water, huh? Now combine that with varying nasty tastes in different cities’ hotels and restaurants.

I totally agree that drinking tap water is better from an ideal standpoint than drinking bottled water, but until they can filter as well as the high-end bottled water companies, and produce a consistently high quality product, I will be sticking with bottled water.:

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Marisol 10 months ago 1 point
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A report this morning said that drinking bottled water may not be better...I think because the same sources are being tapped (no pun intended). Also, the report said contacting the bottled water company may not be helpful if they are not testing for such things. If you could point us to differing opinion, that would be cool. My fridge has a filter that I replace regularly...but who's to say that it's doing wonders for my drinking water either. (smile)

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Joseph 10 months ago 1 point
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Drinking bottled water is not always better, in most cases it's the same as the tap water you are trying to avoid. The federal regulations state that as long as the water is bottled and sold in the same state there's no guidelines against it. Aquafina was in the new recently because it was discovered that they were just bottling the tap water in the cities that the bottles were being sold in. It's kinda scary if you ask me. I use and aquasana filter (www.aquasana.com) to filter my water and I'm quite happy with the results. It was affordable as well as certified to remove the things I was worried about in my water. They have a few other products such as their traveler and sport bottle that can easily be taken on a vacation or a business trip so you don't have to buy bottled water.

Check this site out: www.bottledwaterblues.com for more reading about how bad bottled water really is these days.

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Paul 10 months ago 1 point
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Gotta disagree with you on this one, Daniel. The level of 'drugs' in the public water supply is so minuscule as to be completely meaningless. Come on - parts in a TRILLION? This is shameless fearmongering by AP, and I'm surprised and saddened that you bought into it.

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