Why Is Bottled Water Better Than Tap Water

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Is bottled water really better than tap water? According to Nicole Cotroneo’s article for The New York Times, “Movement Against Bottled Water Gains Municipal Adherents,” Annie Gentile’s “Mayors Push Benefits of Cities’ Tap Water” for American City & County, and “New Study Finds Fault With Some Bottled Waters; Tap Water a Better Bet,” written in Environmental Nutrition, it is merely a myth. Bottled water was once acclaimed for its convenience, but now is being demoralized. In these works, all three authors agree that tap water is far superior than bottle water in the three main categories: environment, cost, and water quality/safety. The environment is impacted from the increasing use of bottled water. “New Study” states that “Americans drink …show more content…
According to Cotroneo, “On average, a gallon of tap water costs one-thousandth of a gallon of purchased bottled water” (20), which is a very big difference in cost. Mayor Martin Chavez agrees from Gentile’s Article saying that “if you can buy pens for $1 each, you wouldn’t spend $1,000 each on them, but that is the kind of markup that you get with bottled water” (18). “New Study” says that getting tap water alone is “much less expensive” and states that considering the cost of buying and maintaining the water filter in the faucet for the tap water, the “bottled water costs about 15 times more” (1). So basically, you are just paying for the plastic bottle which ends up being thrown away and goes into landfills. The plastic bottles are overcharged which can save you a lot of money in the long run if you stick with tap water (Gentile …show more content…
That is not the case, however. According to Cotroneo, many bottled water company are less superior to the tap water that Suffolk County contends (2). With this, many people may wonder what makes this tap water better than the bottled water? Many people have the false standard that bottled water is just better, but in “New Study,” the Environmental Working Group (EWG) “found an alarming 38 pollutants in total, which ran the chemical gamut from disinfection byproducts, arsenic, fertilizer residue, plasticizer and pharmaceuticals.” While some of these may be in regular tap water, “Public water utilities are required to notify customers when contaminants show up in tap water, in form of water quality reports that they must send consumers every July 1. Bottled water companies have no such requirement.” So the water you are consuming right now from bottled water may contain the list of contaminants without you even being aware due to the lack of laws requiring bottle water companies to inform the contaminants in the water