When you opt for bottled water instead of soft drink or fruit juice, you usually feel like you’re going for the healthy, economical option. However, the bottled water industry is much more sinister than you’d think.

1. Bottled water contributes to global warming

Bottled water is responsible for 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. Simply producing the plastic for these bottles costs 47 million gallons of oil annually. At least they’re recyclable, right? Water bottles are almost always recyclable, but more than 80 per cent never make it past the trash. Hopeless.

2. Bottled water is expensive

The average price for a small serve of bottled water is two dollars. The average price of the same serve of tap water is less than one cent. Per gallon, bottled water is more expensive than oil. In fact, the industry is valued at an average of US$60 billion per year.

3. In most Western countries, bottled water isn’t cleaner or healthier than tap water

Tap water often has fluoride added to strengthen your teeth, whereas bottled water doesn’t. Most countries, including America and the United States, have no law that states bottled water has to be better quality than tap water. According to Bottled Water, Pure Drink or Pure Hype?, a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, up to 40% of all American bottled water is the equivalent of tap water as it comes straight from a city water system.

Of course, it’s a good idea not to drink the tap water when you’re travelling overseas. The best option is to invest in a good quality filter. The best filters are either built into a bottle or can be used like a straw.

4. Bottled water is uncool

The word is out: drinking bottled water is about as uncool as being addicted to pokie machines, smoking while pregnant, or wearing your grandmother’s underwear.

Despite the slick advertising on the front of bottled water, featuring crystal clear water running through pristine valleys, bottled water doesn’t make anyone look healthier or sportier. It is all part of an advertising campaign by the large corporations who own the main bottled water brands that works by selling us a product we don’t need through scare-mongering and pretty pictures.

To protest against bottled water and sign the pledge to boycott bottled water from your life, visit: http://beyondthebottle.org

Want to know more, or spread the moral outrage amongst your friends? This thought-provoking eight minute video with cute animations should do the trick: http://youtu.be/Se12y9hSOM0

The yearly celebration of Earth Day is something that helps everyone focus their attention on the health of the planet earth and the ways that we can all make changes in the things we do each day to help take better care of our planet. One thing that is a mindless habit for many is the drinking of bottled water. The plastic bottles that are discarded each day end up in a variety of places. Some are sent to the recycling centers for plastics and large amounts of them are mixed in with the landfill waste where they may take centuries to totally decompose, if ever. Reduce your carbon foot print with something simple and easy to do, stop drinking harmful bottled water.

The problem of waste management and the out of control volume of the plastic bottles that are used each day make it more important than ever that we all think of ways to lessen our own contribution to such a destructive and wasteful trend. We all have choices and with our consciousness being raised on this topic, we can start to think each day of ways we can be part of the solution and not the problem. Reduce your carbon foot print by making bottled waters a thing of the past for your own drinking of water.

There are wonderful and very earth gentle solutions that can eliminate the need for any purchases of bottled water and they can be quite money saving at the same time that they are earth friendly. The SureAqua portable, high volume water filters can make the need to buy bottled water a thing of the past. They are a way to reduce your carbon foot print and still be able to drink all the clean and healthy water that you wish each day.

If you stop drinking the purchased bottled waters, you immediately stop adding to the demand for that product which uses a great deal of fossil fuels in the trucking and shipping of the product. There will be less waste from discarded single use bottles and you can feel good about your earth friendly new habit and how you have found a way to reduce your carbon foot print.

We have all heard it said from our local politicians that buying bottled water is bad for the environment, but, what about the argument that the Water Quality in these bottles could be equal to or lesser than your average tap water?     Take a little personal inventory and ask yourself if you buy the bottled water out of convenience, or, do you buy it because of the quality of the water?     If you answer the latter, versus the former, then pay close to attention to just what you may be ingesting.

For starters, it has been known for some time according to the Natural Resources Defence Council that the bottles from water contribute to the 60 million bottles a day that end up in landfills.     This fact alone would make the average consumer think twice about general Water Quality once the decomposing of the bottles hits the atmosphere.     The facts show that to have purer quality of water a home, attaching a filtration device to your tap is the best solution.

Bottled water may be clean enough when it is first filtered and put into plastic bottles but considering its container, it does not stay that way for long.     In a study that researched the safest known plastic on the market, there was still a high rate of synthetic chemicals leached into the water from the bottle.     Contaminating the Water Quality was unavoidable even in the popular refillable polycarbonate water bottles.

From the website www.WaterWarning.com it is noted that there is no chemically-free way to get great Water Quality from a these plastic bottles.     The facts are that it takes 7 times as much water to make a plastic bottle then the water that it can hold.     Not only is this a waste of our precious resources but of time and money as well.     The best way to get clean drinking water at home is from a home filtration device.

But do you do when not at home?     There is a cost effective solution!   At less than 1 cent per litre, SureAqua have developed a portable water filtration device, unlike many others that truly removes bacteria, viruses and protozoa’s out of water and has a safety cut-off mechanism.    

The way it works is that there is a specifically designed membrane that only let molecules and particles through that are smaller than 0.01 microns that’s an amazingly 5 times smaller than the smallest known virus and a massive 100 times smaller than the smallest commonly known bacteria (1 micron).* 

The most economical, safest and most convenient way to get the best Water Quality to your door, is simply to invest in a home water filtration device and have portable water filtration devices in your handbag, briefcase, car, backpack when not at home.       Take this into consideration for your home and out-of-home needs when you determining whether to purchase a water filtering device or bottled water.    For the fraction of the cost of water bottles, less contamination and less environmental impact these are a real and effective alternative.

Note:  Viruses and bacteria are being discovered every day and this may be inaccurate at the time of reading