Bottled water may threaten health

I've never understood why people bought plain bottled water where tap water is available (unless you live in Delmas, of course).

Sometimes I would stop at a garage, and people I was travelling with bought bottled water, and I would buy Coke or Mirinda or Sprite or something like that. Yes, I know it is only sugar and artificial flavouring, but I felt that at least there was some value added.

Then the bottled water people started adding flavours, and I tried a few. I like aQuelle naartjie flavour, and Selzer tangerine, and started to buy them, especially after the price dropped below that of Coke and such things. Selzer and aQuelle claim to be spring water rather than tap water, but a lot of the brands of bottled water are just plain tap water sold at vastly inflated prices.

And the thing that gets me is that a lot of people use that plain bottled water at home, on the table. It's much cheaper and less polluting when it comes straight out of the tap into a jug than putting it into plastic bottles that just get thrown away, and transporting it around the country on lorries.

clipped from www.iol.co.za Consumers are waking up to some startling facts about buying water in bottles, the National Consumer Forum (NCF) said on Friday. "Apart from being ripped off, consumers are also threatening their health and the environment," the NCF said. In the United States, public pressure has been growing to force powerful corporations to disclose where their bottled water comes from, after research indicated that up to 40 percent of bottled water uses tap water as its source. In the US, some consumers are already paying a 3 000 percent premium on water by buying it in bottles instead drinking it from their taps, the NCF said.