Is Bottled Water just Tap Water?

As both a health-conscious individual and marketing professional, the growing bottled water industry continues to amaze me.

Since health comes first in my book, I wanted to know if bottled water was safer or better for the human body.  It turns out that the inferred claim that bottled water is cleaner or purer is still the biggest hoax today. According to the NRDC, " an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle -- sometimes further treated, sometimes not. "

In an article today by Lori Bongiorno, environmental journalist, she writes that the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyzed 173 bottled water products and that "...more than half of the bottled water products surveyed failed EWG's transparency test --18 percent didn't say where their water comes from, and another 32 percent did not disclose any information on treatment or purity of water."

Even popular name brands like Zephyrhills and Acquafina received a "D" rating for transparency. What do they have to hide? Yet in 2003 Americans spent $10 billion on bottled water.

Not much has changed since I've been following this trend in the year 2000. Shockingly, people still buy it! Have the slick, advertising campaigns drowned the common sense part of the brain of mass consumers? Or is it more about vanity and carrying a stylish bottle with eye-catching font than about protecting the earth? Don't be fooled by the recycle symbol on the box. According to the NRDC, "Most bottled water comes in recyclable PET plastic bottles, but only about 13 percent of the bottles we use get recycled. In 2005, 2 million tons of plastic water bottles ended up clogging landfills instead of getting recycled."

I recall one weekday in 2009 being home sick and watching Oprah and the Ellen deGeneres shows back to back.  That day happened to be Earth Day. Oprah's segment focused entirely on the damaging effects of the plastic bottles on our earth and ecosystem.  I had no idea how devasting it was to those cute sea creatures much less our landfills and earth. I was overwhelmed.

In her usual upbeat style, Ellen also educated her audience and viewers how are daily habits were hurting the earth and shared fun ways to convert those habits into golden rules.

If clean, pure water is a concern, invest in a filter. Be sure to do some research on certified filters that remove certain contaminants.

Here's your health and our mother earth.