Why do people buy so much bottled water at the grocery store?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The District provides lead in the drinking water for free.

https://www.tapwaterdata.com/blog/cities/dc-water-lead-reduction-2025

DC tap water currently meets federal safety standards, with lead levels well below the EPA action level.

If you have detectabe lead in your water, due to your own pipes, you can replace your lead pipes.


While DC Water works toward complete lead line replacement, NSF-certified filters provide immediate protection.

There is no safe amount of lead.

Of course there is. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water

From your link

EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agree that there is no known safe level of lead in a child's blood. Taking action to reduce these exposures can improve outcomes. Lead is harmful to health, especially for children.

Are you under the impression that bottled water offers zero lead?

It would offer less lead. As a private producer, they are vulnerable to lawsuits and have an interest in avoiding them. Good luck holding the municipality responsible.

https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-in-your-bottled-water-a5361150329/

And where on the bottle does it say what the lead content is? Or anything else?

The municipality posts the tests for the public to access.

Taken before it enters their antique network of pipes.

[Anonymous]

I have not purchased bottled water in years! Guests in my house get filtered Britta water if they want water. I do have cans of fizzy water if they like bubbly water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless one is distilling their own water in a stainless steel container, and storing it in a quality glass container, they are drinking all sorts of toxins.

Bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water. You can read the location of the source on the bottle, or at least you used to be able to. Perhaps people got mad that their storebought water said "L.A. municipal water supply" and such, so they removed the source name and now say "call for content and source information" which nobody ever bothers doing.

With bottled water, you get all the toxins of government controlled tap water, plus the added microplastics and petrochemicals from the plastics, so you have to pay extra for that.

Actually, SOME “bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water”. As you’ve just pointed out, it’s important to read the labels if you want information about the source. Beyond that, not all tap water is the same. There actually are some tap waters that I would pay for. There are also imported waters that I do pay for: like Fiji water, for example.

An elitist water connoisseur has entered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless one is distilling their own water in a stainless steel container, and storing it in a quality glass container, they are drinking all sorts of toxins.

Bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water. You can read the location of the source on the bottle, or at least you used to be able to. Perhaps people got mad that their storebought water said "L.A. municipal water supply" and such, so they removed the source name and now say "call for content and source information" which nobody ever bothers doing.

With bottled water, you get all the toxins of government controlled tap water, plus the added microplastics and petrochemicals from the plastics, so you have to pay extra for that.

Actually, SOME “bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water”. As you’ve just pointed out, it’s important to read the labels if you want information about the source. Beyond that, not all tap water is the same. There actually are some tap waters that I would pay for. There are also imported waters that I do pay for: like Fiji water, for example.

An elitist water connoisseur has entered.

.

Yeah. And?

[Anonymous]

The most annoying thing when you have guests over is when people constantly ask for a glass of water. So anytime we have any amount of guests over 3 I have bottled water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The District provides lead in the drinking water for free.

https://www.tapwaterdata.com/blog/cities/dc-water-lead-reduction-2025

DC tap water currently meets federal safety standards, with lead levels well below the EPA action level.

If you have detectabe lead in your water, due to your own pipes, you can replace your lead pipes.


While DC Water works toward complete lead line replacement, NSF-certified filters provide immediate protection.

There is no safe amount of lead.

Of course there is. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water

From your link

EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agree that there is no known safe level of lead in a child's blood. Taking action to reduce these exposures can improve outcomes. Lead is harmful to health, especially for children.

Are you under the impression that bottled water offers zero lead?

It would offer less lead. As a private producer, they are vulnerable to lawsuits and have an interest in avoiding them. Good luck holding the municipality responsible.

https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-in-your-bottled-water-a5361150329/

And where on the bottle does it say what the lead content is? Or anything else?

The municipality posts the tests for the public to access.

Taken before it enters their antique network of pipes.

I have a filter at my house which does the job. You're just too ignorant to understand that your bottled water from Costco is not better (probably worse) than the water I filter at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless one is distilling their own water in a stainless steel container, and storing it in a quality glass container, they are drinking all sorts of toxins.

Bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water. You can read the location of the source on the bottle, or at least you used to be able to. Perhaps people got mad that their storebought water said "L.A. municipal water supply" and such, so they removed the source name and now say "call for content and source information" which nobody ever bothers doing.

With bottled water, you get all the toxins of government controlled tap water, plus the added microplastics and petrochemicals from the plastics, so you have to pay extra for that.

Actually, SOME “bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water”. As you’ve just pointed out, it’s important to read the labels if you want information about the source. Beyond that, not all tap water is the same. There actually are some tap waters that I would pay for. There are also imported waters that I do pay for: like Fiji water, for example.

An elitist water connoisseur has entered.

Wait -- does that Fiji water actually come from Fiji? So they are putting water (which is really heavy) in containers and then shipping it half way across the world on boats so that people here can drink it? I thought that was just a marketing ploy -- I'm appalled that they are actually shipping this stuff.

Some day in the future, when the glaciers have melted and the jet stream has stopped functioning, some little child will ask their grandparent, and he will tell about the days when rich people bottled water from one part of the world, put it into containers made with petrochemicals, used fossil fuels to ship it halfway around the world, and then those petrochemical bottles were thrown into the trash, where they were then transported again halfway around the world to be dumped on a beach and ultimately into the water supply to poison our water with microplastics. And they did this all because they thought the water from half way around the world tasted a little better than the water that was available right in their own town.

I know I do tons of wasteful stuff, but every time I stop and think about how we live our lives -- compared even to how people lived 100 years ago -- I am amazed at what we are doing, and how little thought we put into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our food quality control is much higher than it was. My four grandparents, born between 1912 and 1918 all lived into their mid 90s or later and that was without food quality control for most of their lives. I have two relatives that are 104 and 103 who are still living! I don’t think the microplastic from the water bottle is enough to affect my health.

I have longevity in my family too, but you are totally misinterpreting the data here. Those relatives of yours who are 103 and 104 were NOT exposed to plastics in their youth. They probably had extremely minimal plastics exposure until their middle age. And, importantly, they had ZERO exposure to microplastics in utero. The recent research shows that plastics exposure in utero is really damaging to the endocrine system, and that exposure at young ages has a lot of impact on inflammatory and other responses - basically we are sowing hte seeds for later cancer and other issues with nicroplastic and nanoplastic exposures at a young age. So it's people born after 1970 or so that are really impacted. And we are definitely seeing increased early cancer rates in that cohort (and possibly other problems like increased fertility problems, etc., although I think it's hard to get comparative data on that because there are so many other things that affect reproduction).

[Anonymous]

People here put an awful lot of trust in the idiots and corrupt bozos working in their local government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People here put an awful lot of trust in the idiots and corrupt bozos working in their local government.

We should trust the bottle companies' CEOs instead?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really like water, and that’s what I drink most of the time. I buy water for the taste like some people buy wine or coffee.
The water in my condo doesn’t taste good, and, about twice a year, it can taste really horrible. Brita and Pur filters make it better, but not as good as a $2 gallon of spring water. I buy the smaller bottles occasionally too, when I’d rather have lighter disposable bottles vs a heavier metal bottle to carry around. I also worked in a setting where lead was found in the drinking water, so I’d rather have access to water from a reasonably known source. Every now and then, I spring for the good stuff in glass bottles.

"spring water" haha

[Anonymous]

if the water is the exact same water that you are getting in a bottle how is the taste so incredibly different?

Have you ever tasted the tap water in Orlando? It’s some of the most disgusting tap water i’ve ever had and everyone knows it’s bad. They must have an all park filter on Disney property because that water is fine. I just get grossed out when the tap water tastes so bad and I imagine what is in it to make it taste like that? Yet overall all bottled water tastes very similar to me-some more crisp/refreshing than others but all very neutral. So it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s just “heavily filtered tap water” because it tastes inherently better regardless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:if the water is the exact same water that you are getting in a bottle how is the taste so incredibly different?

Have you ever tasted the tap water in Orlando? It’s some of the most disgusting tap water i’ve ever had and everyone knows it’s bad. They must have an all park filter on Disney property because that water is fine. I just get grossed out when the tap water tastes so bad and I imagine what is in it to make it taste like that? Yet overall all bottled water tastes very similar to me-some more crisp/refreshing than others but all very neutral. So it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s just “heavily filtered tap water” because it tastes inherently better regardless.

It's not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here put an awful lot of trust in the idiots and corrupt bozos working in their local government.

We should trust the bottle companies' CEOs instead?

We can sue the CEOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The District provides lead in the drinking water for free.

https://www.tapwaterdata.com/blog/cities/dc-water-lead-reduction-2025

DC tap water currently meets federal safety standards, with lead levels well below the EPA action level.

If you have detectabe lead in your water, due to your own pipes, you can replace your lead pipes.


While DC Water works toward complete lead line replacement, NSF-certified filters provide immediate protection.

There is no safe amount of lead.

Of course there is. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water

From your link

EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agree that there is no known safe level of lead in a child's blood. Taking action to reduce these exposures can improve outcomes. Lead is harmful to health, especially for children.

Are you under the impression that bottled water offers zero lead?

It would offer less lead. As a private producer, they are vulnerable to lawsuits and have an interest in avoiding them. Good luck holding the municipality responsible.

https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-in-your-bottled-water-a5361150329/

And where on the bottle does it say what the lead content is? Or anything else?

The municipality posts the tests for the public to access.

Taken before it enters their antique network of pipes.

I have a filter at my house which does the job. You're just too ignorant to understand that your bottled water from Costco is not better (probably worse) than the water I filter at home.

So, muni water is perfectly fine as long as you filter it. We are quite a distance from lead in muni water is completely acceptable.