Bottled vs. Tap Water: Which Is Better?
If you’re concerned about the quality of your drinking water, you’re not alone. In fact, some surveys indicate between 30% and 40% of households avoid drinking tap water and opt to buy bottled water instead.
Depending on your location and the brand you buy, bottled water costs 300 to 1000 times as much as straight tap water. A 2015 analysis indicated the average bottle of water cost about $1.45, the rough equivalent of 10 years of the same volume of tap water. In the typical American household, each household member consumes roughly 160 bottles of water a year at an estimated cost of more than $240 per person, and some consume much more.
Is bottled water better than untreated tap water? Many Americans seem to think, so let’s start there. Key issues include:
- Purity. People routinely assume bottled water is pure, free from contaminants and safer than tap water. In actuality, both tap and bottled water are required to meet similar quality standards, so in many instances there’s little to no difference. If it’s been distilled, filtered and/or sanitized using reverse osmosis or ozonation, bottled water will typically be labeled as purified.
- Lead, copper and fluoride. Tap water often contains lead, copper and fluoride. Municipal systems often add fluoride to improve cavity resistance, and water may leach lead and copper from the piping distribution system, from lead plumbing in homes built before the 1980s, or both. Bottled water tends to have lower levels of these compounds, but it isn’t necessarily free of them.
- Chemical contaminants. Tap and bottled water may contain one or more chemical contaminants and still meet the relevant EPA or FDA standards as long as the amount meets or falls below maximum contaminant levels (MCLs).
- Chlorine. Most public water systems use chlorine as a disinfectant to reduce bacteria levels. Unfortunately, even low levels of chlorine can affect how water tastes and smells. Since most bottled water is disinfected using methods that don’t involve chlorine, it’s typically free of the characteristic chlorine odor and taste.
If you’ve been buying bottled water to avoid these issues, home water treatment could be a more cost effective investment. Options are available at every price point and range from simple devices that attach to your faucet to whole house systems that filter contaminants, eliminate odors, remove heavy metals and kill bacteria, viruses and parasites. A number of systems are also capable of removing up to 15 compounds classified as new, emerging contaminants. Since the typical four-person family can save close to $1000 by eliminating the bottled water habit, home water treatment is an alternative well worth exploring.