Since we require large amounts of liquid to exist, and in fact, are largely made up of water, choosing a healthy source is very important to our lives. A question has been raised in the recent past about the safety of tap water vs filtered water, which has led to more and more people choosing bottled. However, this simplistic view is not the entire picture, and more information is needed to make an informed choice.

Because of the growing numbers of people choosing to drink bottled water, campaigns have been launched to let them know how bad that choice is for the environment. Bottles for drinks are made of plastic, which is made from oil, the production and refinement of which is not ecologically friendly. Then, once the bottles are used, they are almost always discarded in the trash, not recycling. These bottles end up in the landfill, where they take hundreds or thousands of years to degrade. If they manage to be recycled, that requires energy as well. In terms of being ecologically friendly, bottled drinks are not a good choice.

What people don’t always know is that standards for bottled water are actually not as stringent as those for city tap. In the US, the testing rates required are actually lower, even for things like bacteria and toxic heavy metals. This means that bottled, which is largely sold as a healthier alternative to tap, may not be safer than tap.

A United States-based study have proven that some bottled brands have unsafe levels of contaminants. The study can only be expected to show the picture at that point in time, and thus means that all bottled brands need to be looked at with suspicion as potentially dangerous. The conclusion reached is that bottled is definitely not always safer than tap.

Those who are convinced of the ecological dangers of bottled but not of the safety of tap can make a third choice. Purchasing their own filtration device can alleviate concerns by additionally purifying their tap. Companies can be contracted to deliver purified water in large, refillable containers, but in home devices are definitely superior from a monetary standpoint.

Many large brands of bottled drinks actually provide filtered tap, not spring water or other ‘naturally sourced’ types. Given that the bottles are bad for the environment and purchasing them is expensive, using a home filtration system makes sense. Water from a filtration system is essentially the same as many types of bottled.

Using an in-home filtration system will allow you to get the best of both worlds– the tap that you purify will be held to the high municipal standards required by the overseeing agency, but your purification device will remove any remaining contaminants. If you do not wish to drink the chlorine, chloramine or fluoride in tap, using a purification device can remove it.

There is not one answer to the question of tap water vs filtered water. Bottled is a universally negative choice in terms of the benefits achieved versus the costs accrued, but either straight tap or purified tap can be a good choice. Additional purification is not seen as necessary for those who live in the US, however, by most experts.

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