BF2S Forums The government is banning bottled water in the USA

zedxer wrote:

I don't drink my water. It comes from a water treatment center in Pennslvania. My water leaves a black crud out and on my faucet and other places it touches. I 'll be damned before I drink that fluoride waste depot.

Just in case you all are wondering why I am against fluoride it is because it is waste from the manufacturing of aluminum that they just love to dump in our water over here.

In the US, tap water is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency while bottled water, considered a food product, is monitored by the Food and Drug Administration. A 1999 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that the FDA’s regulations for bottled water are often weaker than EPA rules for tap water, and that bottled water is not necessarily any safer than tap water. In testing over 100 brands of bottled water, about one-third exceeded allowable state and industry limits for contaminants such as bacteria and arsenic. The study also found that bottled water regulations allow for some contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform, as opposed to tap-water rules, which prohibit any confirmed contamination of these bacteria.

Even with widespread disinfection, consumer groups have raised numerous warnings about a host of different microorganisms and chemicals that have been found in bottled water. In a four-year scientific study, the NRDC tested more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. A third of the tested brands were found to contain contaminants such as arsenic and carcinogenic compounds in at least some samples at levels exceeding state or industry standards.

As ABC News put it, Ad campaigns touting spring-fed or glacier-born H2O are winning over a population increasingly skeptical of taps and willing to shell out big bucks for what they consider a purer, tastier and safer drink. The Environmental Law Foundation has sued eight bottlers on the basis that they used words like pure to market water containing bacteria, arsenic and chlorine breakdown products.

Co-op America points out that, in one case, bottled water labeled as Alaska Premium Glacier Drinking Water: Pure Glacier Water from the Last Unpolluted Frontier was actually drawn from Public Water System #111241 in Juneau. The FDA now requires this bottler to add from a municipal source on the label.

One quarter of all bottled water actually originates from the tap, such as purified waters like Pepsis Aquafina and Coca-Colas Dasani (basically tap water cleaned through a reverse osmosis system and bottled locally).

The [bottled water] industry generates 1.5 million tons of polluting plastics each year. Moving large quantities of fresh water from its place of origin contributes to freshwater depletion. Indeed, 25 percent of all water bottled and traded is consumed outside its country of origin. According to a report commissioned by the World Wildlife Federation, the transportation of bottled water, and its related consumption of fossil fuels, is a contributing factor to global warming.

Taste, safety and convenience aside, the plastics surrounding bottled water are highly pollutive. The bottled water industry produces 1.5 million tons of plastic a year but since many US states dont have a deposit system for bottled water containers, the vast majority dont get recycled… And dont think just because you throw something away it disappearsplastics can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade on land, and 450 years in water.