By Emily Hernandez
When most people think of bottled water, they think of water that comes from the mountains or the springs – they think of fresh, natural water. However, about half of all bottled water is actually just tap water which can contain lead, herbicides, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, mercury, microbial parasites, and more. Chlorine is used by many municipal water plants to control microbes, but there’s often too much of it your tap water leading to dry skin and irritated eyes and noses.
Most bottled water, labeled as purified water, is just that – filtered water from a local source that may have added minerals. While no worse for you than tap water, the fact of the matter is that you are often paying for the privilege of having tap water put into a bottle for you.
On the other hand, not all bottled water is tap water. If the bottle reads anything along the lines of “spring water,” “artesian water,” or “well water,” it probably does come from an aquifer, whether sourced underground or above ground through a spring. However, if the water from those sources is not filtered, you’re getting all the contaminants that occur naturally, or may have leached into the water source.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether your bottled water is municipal water or aquifer water, it just matters that you are drinking clean, filtered water for your health and the only way to ensure that is to have it tested.