Bottle your own

Beer, too. But in this case, I'm talking water.

The IBWA urges consumers to trust bottled water in part because the FDA requires water sources to be "inspected, sampled, analyzed and approved." However, the NRDC argues that the FDA provides no specific requirements-such as proximity to industrial facilities, underground storage tanks or dumps-for bottled water sources. That's looser monitoring than occurs at the EPA, which requires more specific assessments of tap water sources. Olson says one brand of "spring water," which had a graphic of mountains and a lake on the label, was actually taken from a well in Massachusetts in the parking lot of an industrial facility. The well, which is no longer used for bottled water, was near hazardous waste and had experienced contamination by industrial chemicals.

According to Olson, the FDA has no official procedure for rejecting bottled water sources once they become contaminated. He also says a 1990 government audit revealed that 25 percent of water bottlers had no record of source approval. Further, in contrast to the EPA, which employs hundreds of staffers to protect the nation's tap water systems, the FDA doesn't have even one full-time regulator in charge of bottled water.

...Further, while EPA rules specify that no confirmed E. coli or fecal coliform (bacteria that indicate possible contamination by fecal matter) contamination is allowed in tap water, the FDA merely set a minimum level for E. coli and fecal coliform presence in bottled water. Tap water from a surface source must be tested for cryptosporidium, giardia and viruses, unlike bottled water, and must also be disinfected, unlike bottled water. Hoober also notes that food products such as "carbonated water," "soda water" and "seltzer water"-in addition to most flavored waters-are held to even looser standards than "true" bottled water.

The EPA concludes, "Some bottled water is treated more than tap water, while some is treated less or not at all."

Environmentalists also point out that if a brand of bottled water is wholly packaged and sold within the same state, it is technically not regulated by the FDA, and is therefore only legally subject to state standards, which tend to vary widely in scope and vigor. Co-op America reports that 43 states have one or fewer staff members dedicated to bottled water regulation. On the other hand, California enforces strict regulations on bottled water contaminants, and Fort Collins, Colorado tests bottled water sold in town and posts the results online.

...Another area of potential concern is the fact that no agency calls for testing of bottled water after it leaves its initial packaging plant, leaving some to wonder what happens during months of storage and transport. To begin to examine this question, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment tested 80 samples of bottled water from retail stores and manufacturers. All 80 of the samples had detectable levels of chlorine, fluoride and sodium. Seventy-eight of the 80 contained some nitrate (which can cause methemoglobinemia, or blue-baby syndrome, in higher doses), 12 had nitrite, 53 had chloroform, 33 contained bromodichloro-methane, 25 had arsenic and 15 tested positive for lead.

NRDC concludes, "While much tap water is indeed risky, having compared available data, we conclude that there is no assurance that bottled water is any safer than tap water." Scientists at the University of Geneva arrived at the same conclusion...

For the price of one bottle of Evian, a person can use 1,000 gallons of tap water in the home. Americans spend around $10,700 on bottled water every minute, reports Co-op America, and many consumers think nothing of paying three times as much per gallon of bottled H2O as they do for gasoline.

More and more environmentalists are beginning to question the purpose of lugging those heavy, inefficient, polluting bottles all over the Earth. The parent organization of the World Wildlife Fund, the Switzerland-based World Wide Fund for Nature, argues strongly that the product is a waste of money and is very environmentally unfriendly...The WWF argues that the distribution of bottled water requires substantially more fuel than delivering tap water...around 1.5 million tons of plastic are used globally each year in water bottles, leaving a sizable manufacturing footprint. Most water bottles are made of the oil-derived polyethylene terephthalate, which is known as PET. While PET is less toxic than many plastics, the Berkeley Ecology Center found that manufacturing PET generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions-in the form of nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene-compared to making the same amount of glass. The Climate Action Network concludes, "Making plastic bottles requires almost the same energy input as making glass bottles, despite transport savings that stem from plastic's light weight."...  article

And all that trash.

But, if you're visiting Mexico.....

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.