Tap Water vs Bottled Water - Woodside,NY

I grew up drinking tap water - even drank from the garden hose while playing outside - and it hasn't done me any harm.

Bottled water is horribly bad for the world. The carbon footprint involved in all those bottles plus transportation of large volumes of water is ridiculous. We keep a single case in the house in case of some emergency but that is it. If you feel you want a filter go for it but we drink our water straight out of the tap. Our municipality shares the testing results (bacterial and mineral contaminants) with us twice a year. We use reusable water bottles when we feel the need to carry water with us.

http://www.sustainability.umd.edu/content/culture/filling...

Unless your tap water comes from a contaminated well with, say, a high sulphur content, then of course you should be using it over bottled water!

Tap water is much more regulated by your city/town than bottled water - most bottled water comes from unregulated springs or is just city water from another are (for example, Dasani is municipal water from the Atlanta area which the parent company, Coca Cola, puts in bottles!) - so you're getting nothing different but you are using fossil fuels to a) make the plastic bottles and b) ship that water to your area. It's one of the greatest marketing schemes of our modern age, and all it does is separate people from their income.

Moreover, bottled water (and bottled energy drinks and iced tea, etc.) is a huge contributor to the environmental mess we have. A very low percentage of these bottles are recycled (less than 25%, and worse in many areas). Even if 100% were recycled, it would still be a huge environmental nightmare because of the manufacture of the plastic bottles. Then there's there concern that bottles are subjected to high heat during weeks of transport on tractor trailer trucks and sitting in hot warehouses.

Buy your kids a stainless steel or non-BPA plastic refillable bottle, and use one yourself. You'll get use to the taste in time - these are regional differences and they have nothing to do with water purity. You are safer with town water than anything else. Your mother may have had a reason to boil tap water once or twice, but I think she convinced you of a hazard that doesn't exist.

You can learn more about your town's water treatment - ours tests every year and we get the results of our own pipes/water. But unless you live near major chemical plants or fracking sites, or unless you have a vested interest in the plastic industry, I think you should leave bottled water for the disaster relief teams at the Red Cross and hurricane centers.

Unless you have well water, tap water is safer than bottled. Tap water is actually regulated and tested regularly by the EPA. (My husband is a manager at the EPA Lab where drinking water is tested.) Bottled water is not checked as often, and I'm not sure if it is checked by the EPA.

If you have well water, you would have to pay to have it checked. It could be perfectly safe ... or not. We have well water, and my husband has had it tested at his lab. The bacteria levels are too high for our comfort level, so we refill our bottles at the grocery store, which is actually city water (so it's regulated).

Tap water (that is not well water) is safer. I think your mom bought into the marketing that the bottled water producers initially used!

ETA - I noticed a few people mentioned the taste of tap water or filtering it. The taste does vary from place to place, but a different taste is not the same thing as unsafe. Tap water from municipalities should never be unsafe. If you don't like the taste, absolutely use a filter. But it should never be unsafe. If you ever think it is, call the EPA. They will test it and make sure it is safe!

The NRDC did a study and they say: "Our conclusion is that there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap. And in fact, an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle -- sometimes further treated, sometimes not. " So it sounds like the bottled water you have been buying may just be tap water from somewhere else. I personally hate bottled water bc all that plastic is so bad for the environment, so I am very happy to hear that you are switching to tap. Buy a Britta filter (or some other kind) and filter your tap water first if you want to.

Bottled water is so bad for the environment.

I grew up drinking well water. We now drink water from the tap, though our frig does have a filter.

Bottled water is so wasteful. And for what - water is water. There are some areas that the tap water legitimately tastes, smells, or looks funky, but that is the exception not the rule. In general, tap water is fine to drink (if you're really worried about it contact your water department and get their numbers, they can tell you all you need to know about what is in it, etc) If you're still worried you can get a filter for your tap water. The house we bought has this fancy whole-house-3x-filtration and softening system, and I think it is the most frivolous, unnecessary waste of money. But since it's there, and would cost much more to remove than to maintain, it stays. For now. I believe you'd do your whole family a favor if you acclimated them to drinking tap water now. It's really fine.

A LOT of bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water. Seriously. Our tap water tastes fine, but I know it's not the same everywhere. If yours tastes funny, you can buy an under sink filter system, a on faucet filter system, or a pitcher filter and enjoy filtered water.

However, there's nothing unsafe about your tapwater.

Tap water is fine. She may have grown up where it was not. If you don't like the taste, you can get a filter pretty inexpensively and many of them simply filter from the tap (you add it to the faucet) or you can even buy bottles with a personal filter built in. Reusable bottles for everyone would be a good investment and lower your family's carbon footprint.

City water should be no problem at all. No need to boil it unless the city issues a boil alert (after flooding, broken water mains, compromised water system). In 40+ years of drinking tap water it has never caused me any problems and I've never been under a boiling order. We always drink tap water. You can get a Brita pitcher and keep it in your fridge if that would give you peace of mind.

tap water is not all created equally. obviously.
the tap water at my place is great. hard as a politician's heart and delicious right from our well and filtered, but no chemical additives.
i find highly chlorinated city water disgusting. i'd have to drink bottled water if i lived in a municipality that needed heavy additives.
no clue what your neighborhood water source is, so can't help you.
but there's no way i'd buy bottled water (other than for convenience sake) if i had good tap water.
khairete
S.

We have the good fortune to live in a city where the tap water has won awards for quality. I like to drink really cold water and use a Brita in the fridge, but water straight from the tap here tastes great at any temperature. We have sports bottles that we fill from the tap when leaving the house.

The city tap water in my hometown was also good. People who used bottled water usually lived out of town and had a well with hard minerals.

I've also been to cities where the unfiltered tap water was gross. Not harmful, but it tasted bad. When my sister lived in another city, she had to buy bottled water because the tap water was so strong tasting that it couldn't even be used for cooking. It smelled a lot like stagnant lake water. It also had a high mineral content which was hard on appliances. Boiling water like that only makes it worse.

There are locations where tap water may not be safe for one reason or another. There would be a local alert about that and a boil/avoid order. Or if you have a well that is contaminated in some way.

If you like your tap water's taste and there is no local alert, there is no reason you shouldn't drink it.

Unless there aren't water treatment facilities in your area (can't imagine that's the case) tap water is safe. It's strictly regulated and they make their reports public.

Bottled water companies don't always have to make that information public. They also can leave off info on their labels - for example, saying where their water actually came from. It's not all spring water. In fact, I read an article saying that bottled water was city water, but they just added chemicals to it to change the taste.

Some question how safe those chemicals are.

We drink well water - we have it tested. It tastes great.

I grew up drinking tap water.

Water quality can vary quite a bit.
At most places I've lived we always just drank tap water.
Heck, during summers we'd drink it from the hose outside.
Sure it has some minerals in it (ever drop an old tea kettle and have the mineral pieces come out?), and many places adds fluoride (I like it).
We never needed to boil tap water before drinking it.
It might be cloudy for a bit if they've just flushed the fire hydrants but it clears up quckly.

We currently have well water with a water filter, softener, chlorine tank, and a reverse osmosis unit under the kitchen sink.
We use the kitchen sink water for all drinking, cooking and in the humidifier.
Since it's so well filtered we never get any mineral build up.

Actually, bottled water is not always a superior product compared to tap water.
In some cases bottled water was tested and found to BE tap water.
We buy bottled water during hurricane season.
If our power is out, then the pump doesn't work so we have no water - that's when we'll used bottled - for emergency purposes.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/20081014/report-some-bo...

We only use bottled water for vacations or gone for a day and need more than one bottle. Other than that, we use tap water...however, we have a whole house water filter and and RO system for the water that comes out of our refrigerator. I wanted to filter out any contaminants and fluoride. All city water should be 'safe' as it has to follow EPA requirements/limits. Whether or not you feel it is safe is a different thing all together (such as I do not feel fluoride should be added to water and EPA limits can be high at times).

I also want to add, that boiling water before drinking may get rid of bacteria and such, but often makes the other contaminants in the water even more concentrated. Boiling is not advised usually, unless the city puts out an issue for it.

However, bottled water I feel is worse for you and for the environment. Most of the time it is filtered tap water, then add the plastic chemicals in it, and the awful footprint it leaves in the environment....it is a great thing you are changing!!!

You need to figure out the water quality in your area. Each water utility usually has a water quality report annually sent out to the residents in the area.

We had our house re-piped (our pipes were old) and now drink water straight from the tap. Before that, we'd use a Britta filter.

Honestly, drinking boiled water tastes nasty.... so unless there's a water quality issue, I wouldn't.

We drink tap in the house but keep plenty of bottled on hand for when we leave the house. I always have water with me and the kids all do sports.

I think it depends on where you live, how old your house is (what kind of system you have), the natural elements, etc...

It depends where you live but likely it's fine. We almost always drink tap. I've heard it's often better bc it's more regulated. You could just get a Brita system or our refrigerator has a filter too. So lots of options other than bottled. Think of all that plastic you've been using... It's a common argument at work how some people only drink bottled and some of us tell them to stop bc of all the plastic.

Read your municipal water quality report. Our city distributes it once a year, but we can also go on line to their website and get the full report. I trust our water but also have a reverse osmosis system that we use for drinking and cooking.

The quality of water depends on the source of the water and the environment that surrounds the water source.

You could also invest in a filtering system, either a permanent one like reverse osmosis or those that attach to your tap. Brita and similar companies offer various options for refrigerated containers with filters as well.

ETA: I also agree with the first poster who mentioned the pipe issue. If your plumbing system is very old, I would not drink that water.

We do buy bottled water to have for swim and outdoor parties and for sports and school events. I also think it is so wasteful and bad for the environment, but in those instances, it's just easier.

Depends upon your pipes and your water quality. Our city water source used to have some contaminants that were over the limit but still had some necessary minerals. Ped. had us do 50/50 bottle and tap. Now our city has upgraded to a better source and we drink more tap water.

It really depends on where you live. Most city tap water contains fluoride, chlorine and what ever wasn't or couldn't be filtered out.

If you have well water it will have minerals (and sometimes sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs) in it and can have chemicals (if any were dumped in the area at anytime) which is why people should have their wells tested at least once a year.

Either one is fine, but I would use a separate filter like PUR, Britta or Zero water filter.

I've heard it mentioned that NYC has the best water in the country. Which would make sense since it comes from upstate. :)

Until building a house in the burbs, I had never bought water. I think city and village areas which had running municipal water long before suburban areas sprouted up around them generally have better water since they were there first they had top picks.

The house I live in now has very hard water, and heavy on the iron, too. I buy drinking water here. In the house we built, we had a whole house system installed including reverse osmosis for drinking water.

Anyway, many generations of people lived long happy lives without ever having purchased drinking water in a bottle.

Those under the kitchen sink systems are affordable and you can install them yourself, too.

Here's what I found about your water if you live in Woodside.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/wsstate.s...

Also, it might be helpful to know whether your water main is lead, and how old your house and neighborhood it.

You could have it tested too.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/lead_inde...

:)

Depends on where you live. Our tap water is fine, according to our water quality report, but I have a filter on our tap anyway. I used to have a Brita filter but when that broke, I replaced it with a Pur filter on the tap. The water tastes the same but I like the reassurance that the extra layer of filtration provides. I rarely use bottled water and definitely not the small bottles - all that plastic is terrible for the environment and is costly and wasteful.

If you're concerned, get a filter on your tap - it's an easy and economical way to ease your mind without the expense and environmental waste of bottled water.

Our water is not potable (ground chemicals from farming in our area) so we cannot drink tap water unless it has been boiled first. The first couple of years we lived here, I spent a fortune on bottled water. However, I did install an RO system in my house a couple of years ago - big expense at the beginning, but definitely a long run savings.

I would have someone come out and test your water if you are concerned. Lots of water companies (Culligan, etc.) test for free, but are going to try to sell you something. I would look on line first for acceptable levels of what can be in water so you can compare with the report they give you rather than just listen to them scare you with how bad your water is (it could be fine, but then they can't sell you anything!).

If you can get by without ever buying water, all the more power to you! And what a great place to same some money, too :)

I grew up drinking tap water and often straight from the water hose. Today I drink both bottled and tap water. I am quite healthy.

Our water district suggests chilling the water a bit. It all depends on the area, but I think you should ask your water district or check out their website. I am sure they provide you plenty of information about the safety of their drinking water.

If your mother grew up in a place with little/no treatment of piped water, I can understand why she would be concerned. In those places, boiling water, letting it cool, and then pouring the clean water on top for storage is the way to avoid nasty parasites, dirt, or bacteria. I cannot imagine that you live someplace where those precautions are needed. The taste in your area might be an issue, however overall, I think your husband is on to a good way to save money. A filtering pitcher or on the tap can remove the chlorine, which does have a taste.

My almost 4 yr old loves the tap water at home. I think it all depends on where you live and the pipes in your home. I do not like the taste and we use a Brita filter pitcher at home. I only buy bottled water in the summer during the hottest months as a carry and go option vs drinking at home. And I buy a bottle of water for work but fill it 3 or 4 times from the water cooler. you would not WANT to drink the water from the tap in my building. It doesn't even look good.

I also believe it depends on your area and your pipes.

That said, we do not use tap water for anything but showers, bathing, laundry, rarely drinking etc. It is not necessarily because it is bad at my home because I am sure the tap is fine and if I run out of my bottle of water during the night, I will often fill it with tap and have had no issues with taste, etc.

My fridge has a filter and we drink a lot of filtered water from the fridge but we also keep cases of water on hand and in the fridge to use as we go out the door or for drinking at home as well.

We happen to be in the raw materials (plastics) industry and are involved with processing used bottles, piping, etc as well as involved in processing NEW bottles, piping, etc.

The media exaggerates because they love to have a scare factor somewhere for the public to get frightened. The media does not care to share with you what IS done and what REALLY happens with waste. It is sad but that is how it is... they want everyone afraid of everything.

Environmental hazards of drinking tap water vary, so you have to research your area for fracking and stuff. Bottled water is not safer however, as the toxins from plastic bottles leach into the water, especially when heated in cars, or sitting out in sun on loading docks and stuff. You never know where that water has been sitting before it got to the store.

Our area is "OK" for tap water, though we have a lot of fracking and I've heard scary things. But we gave up plastic bottles which has been great since they are cancerous little environment busters. I have a Pur filter on the faucet and also run it through a Brita pitcher, so double filtered. We fill stainless steal (not plastic!) water bottles for car trips.