I guess people haven’t heard the controversy around phthalates and their effects on health. The American Chemical Council says they’re safe. The EU has banned some of these chemicals. I’m not a chemist nor am I a biologist. Regardless of whether they are deemed safe or not, it has been shown that pthalates come out of plastic water bottles and stay in the human body. They are not natural and I don’t want chemicals accumulating in my body or in that of my offspring. Do you?
In addition to phthalates, there are other issues.
- Bottled water is all marketing. The “pristine” water they are selling has been put into plastic bottles. I’d say it’s not pristine anymore.
- It’s been transported from across the world at a great cost. It’s not supporting your local economy for sure.
- It takes oil to make plastic bottles…a lot.
- Do you know the difference between purfied water, distilled water and spring water? What about glacial water? Tap water? The bottled water business is glad you don’t.
- People in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t even have tap water and luxury bottled water sales are ever increasing. Does that seem right?
A recent New York Times article detailing the turning tide is here: bottled water consumption.
I agree that placstics as food and water containers are bad for you. I have also heard that many chemicals are added to tap water by municipalities to prevent pipe corrosion (sp?), etc. Do you know much about this?
How about charcoal filters? Does charcoal have any health effects?
On the issue of chemicals to prevent pipe corrosion, I’d recommending checking with your local public utilities. As for San Francisco, this purpose for additives is not listed.
Public water contents is a serious business. You will find they either use Chlorine or Chloramine as a disinfectant against water born diseases. You may find flouride which is for supposed dental health, but there’s controversy around it. Although, I’ve read real dental health is when the right balance of phosphorus and calcium exists. There’s also Aluminum, Arsenic, Copper, Chromium, Asbestos, and Lead. Each of these are limited as to how many parts per million can be in the water. This is governed by the EPA.
On the Charcoal filter front, I have to say…after reading http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/tcr/pdfs/whitepaper_tcr_permation-leaching.pdf
I am almost and advocate of them. Activated charcoal has a large surface area and is highly microporous. This may sound strange but 1 gram of activated charcoal (or carbon) has more surface area than a tennis court. This means its capacity to filter and absorb is huge. Just change the filter when recommended so bacteria doesn’t accumulate.
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