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 | Bottled water may be your best option in an area that has an inadequate water supply. |
| Bottled water is the only choice if you have concern about tritium in the water. Tritium is
radioactive water molecules, and no filter can separate water from water. Reverse osmosis can remove radioactive heavy metals, which are considered more biologically
significant than tritium. Radioactive heavy metals are human-made; tritium
is found in nature as well as in contamination from nuclear power plants. |
| If buying bottled water, the recommended type is reverse osmosis. It should be bought or delivered in glass containers. Second choice for delivery would be hard plastic 5 gallon jugs. The quality of the water, of course, reflects the sanitary controls of the manufacturer.
Bottled RO water can be hard to find. I had heard that Great Bear, a
subsidiary of Poland Springs, delivers RO water.
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| Regulation is skimpy or non-existent . Quality control depends on the commitment of the company. I was sitting in a local water authority meeting one night when a request came from a local bottled water company to put the water authority's stamp of approval on their product. The authority members declined, saying that they didn't know what the company might do to the water after it left the well. Note that the bottled water was being drawn from the same county wells as municipal water. |
| Occasionally a health department, such as Nassau County Department of Health in NY, will test an assortment of brands. This health department reported that they found inconsistent results and could not recommend bottled water. For some reason, they did not test the brands that have most of the market share. |
| Spring water and mineral water have dissolved minerals in forms that cannot be absorbed by the body and which
are an additional load to the kidneys. |
| Some well-known spring water is filtered, so the consumers are not getting
many minerals, anyway. Along these lines, I have never heard a discussion on
parasites and bottled water. |
| If desirous of spring water, Mountain Valley from Arkansas would have
higher pH. One of my clients had a sample tested and it was fine, including
for nuclear radiation. Mountain Valley is delivered in glass containers,
another plus. |
| The government allows a certain amount of toxic metals in spring water. Spring water is
not guaranteed to be free of bacteria. |
| Bottles of distilled water may not have bacteria, but dissolved gaseous contaminants get recycled to the distilled water. Because most volatile organic chemicals have lower boiling points than water, they precede the water into the collection bottle. Although some manufacturers provide an escape opening for these chemicals (into the room air), this opening must be small in relation to the collection tube, or water vapor would also pass off into the room air. Therefore, most of the chemicals will pass down the same collection tube as the steam does. |
| Bottled water is usually sold in soft plastic containers, which must be suspect for leaching xenoestrogens (estrogen mimickers associated with breast cancer) into the water.
Often bottled water tastes like plastic. Look on the bottom of the plastic bottle to see if the plastic is soft or hard. "1" in the recycling triangle indicates the softest type of plastic, which is considered the least stable. But even the hardest plastic, number "7", polycarbonate, contains BPA, a substance recently rejected by the American Dental Association. |
| Stick with glass if possible. Especially avoid soft plastic containers. If you have no option, such as with an under-the-counter reverse osmosis unit, use
polycarbonate or other inert material. |
| Having water delivered can get expensive. One client estimated $1,200/person per
year for just her usage. |
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© 2001 May E. Dooley -
Enviro Health Environmental Home Inspections |
