Do you know how clean your drinking water is?

Answer 1

Unless there are problems with a towns drinking water supply or town wells, drinking water is just as clean and safe to drink as bottled water.
http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp

Answer 2

Well, many water labels a little while ago was from spring water, and still are,but scientists found that, well, even though from the natural running of the spring, we can make it more pure. Fish swim in spring and anything could get into the wilderness flowing of spring, even though they keep it very well, watched. They now started to use electrolytes, where the rain water which evaporates from the clouds is very much at its purest, they then use this science of electrolytes to zap out anything else that might just be in the water still. If in doubt, as a pregnant woman myself, I always called the number on the back of the bottled water to see what process they used,spoke to an agent and asked if it was the safest for a pregnant woman, since we are recommended to only drink the purest. They even would send me a brochure in the mail on their back round and their exact processing of their pure water!!!. I thoroughly enjoyed Smart Water, and it tasted so good and different from the others. Have fun experimenting!!

Answer 3

depends, what you mean by "clean".

Example:
On the south coast of Spain, our company bought a big land.
In souht spain there is no industry, so there is no industrial pollution.
However, the land was a farm land, pure nature.
On that land was a very old water well.
In that water well was pure water, filling the well with water from under ground. The soil itself is like a filter, leaving very pure water in the well.
The water did not smell, looked cristal clear, and tasted just like that: pure water.
Anyway we took it to the Laboratoy. The Lab found bakteria, which was there because of of a dead rat (or more dead rats and other animals maybe).
Those bakteria as you can imagine, are not a good thing to drink,
so that water is not considered to be "clean", even if it looks, smalles and tasted very clean.

Side note:
Any "dirty" water can be cleaned. In our case it was as easy as to
poor in some "medicine" to kill the bacteria (and get rid of the dead rat of course)
Today there are machines you can buy for home use, which produce water out of air. That water is pure H2O.
Also there are some filters for home use.

Answer 4

You never can tell how clean your drinking water is, without the right instruments. But even drinking bottled water, you are still drinking water infected, because no matter how much you try, no one can ever kill off all the millions of microscopic organisms and bacteria that live in water, not even with heat, since a lot thrive in boiling water.

Answer 5

we all know the dangers of public drinking water and the contamination from things like pollution, etc. but bottled water drinkers that think they are safe - better read this!

Bottled Water

Concerns about bottled water include the fact that the government regulations regarding it are often less stringent than those for public water systems. The former is controlled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the latter by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Their regulations can differ somewhat. Dr. Millichap lists the government permitted contamination levels. Interestingly, one third of all bottled water sold in the United States is actually taken from a public water system. However, if the bottled water does come from a deep, protected acquifer, it is less likely to be contaminated than a public water system that is derived from surface water. "Upland surface water and polluted river sources that have been chlorinated carry the highest risk of cancer. Unchlorinated ground water has the lowest cancer risk."

When you use bottled water, choose glass bottles. Even when the water is from an excellent source, storing it in plastic causes contamination. "It may surprise consumers to realize the enormous potential for risk of intoxication from a multitude of migrant chemicals contained in plastic containers." Government regulation has reduced some of these risks. However, "a carcinogen, methylene chloride, may enter bottled water from the polycarbonate resin in certain plastic bottles, and bacteria may multiply during prolonged storage."

Answer 6

Most municipal water supplies are actually cleaner than bottled drinking water.

For example, a bottled water company ran an ad that included the phrase, "It's not from Pittsburgh."

The city of Pittsburgh took exception to this, and had sample of it's municipal water sent off to a lab, to be compared to samples of the high priced bottled water.

What they found was that Pittsburgh's water was far cleaner than that of the high end bottled water.

Bottled water isn't really regulated, while most city water supplies are regulated and frequently tested so any contaminants can be dealt with ASAP.

What's worse, if you are drinking water bottled in the same state in which it was sold, even the paltry FDA regulations don't apply. Most states have few to no regulations on bottled water.

The main reason to filter city water is to remove the taste of any residual chlorine, and to deal with any lead form old pipes running to your house. Yes, most the contaminants in your water are introduced in the last few hundred feet.

Bottled watter has an additional problem, in that gases from the plastic bottles can leech into the water. This is why some bottled water will taste like plastic, particularly if the bottle has been exposed to head.

Here's a quote from NRDC.org

"Even when bottled waters are covered by the FDA's rules, they are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water (see chart below). For example, bottled water is required to be tested less frequently than city tap water for bacteria and chemical contaminants. In addition, bottled water rules allow for some contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform (which indicate possible contamination with fecal matter), contrary to tap water rules, which prohibit any confirmed contamination with these bacteria. Similarly, there are no requirements for bottled water to be disinfected or tested for parasites such as cryptosporidium or giardia, unlike the rules for big city tap water systems that use surface water sources. This leaves open the possibility that some bottled water may present a health threat to people with weakened immune systems, such as the frail elderly, some infants, transplant or cancer patients, or people with HIV/AIDS."

Answer 7

You see the question is how clean your plumbing is. By law the city has to have a certain level of chemicals in your water to be drinkable ( they go by ppm ) when the water leaves the city reservoir to go to our homes it is very clean and meets all specifications. it is tested and all. Now the problem is in our pipes... Our pipes aren't so clean, there is tons of build up calcium and minerals on the side walls of the pipes. So by the time that water gets in your glass it might not be as clean as that same water that left the city reservoir.

Answer 8

Most people don't know how clean their drinking water is, and the taste is usually horrible, I think this is why bottled water is so popular. I wish I would have came up with that idea.

Answer 9

My city water recently hit the news as being the cleanest drinking water in the United States.

I'm sorry to say this, Sunidaze, but your bottled water simply came from another city's drinking water supply. Its probably no cleaner than your own tap water. Its a good practice to drink it while in another country, but if you drink here in the states, you are buying into one of the biggest scams.

Answer 10

Your water supply company has to meet federal and state mandated guidelines as to how much imperfections are allowed- ours sends us a copy of their yearly test with the percentages of the chemicals found in the water.
I think this is a law in Texas.

But, I'm sure all public water systems must provide reasonably "safe" drinking water. If they cannot, for whatever reason, they must make it well known to local authorities and issue a "boil notice" until the water is deemed "safe"

But most public water systems taste pretty yucky. we use it to make coffee and bathe in, but rarely drink it straight out of the faucet anymore. bottled water is much better for drinking.

The link below is a sample of water quality reporting from Melbourne, Florida's public works and utilities-