Sure, we have heard a few different things about why bottled water is bad but did you know there was a lot more to it than just the plastic it is being kept in? Sure BPA is toxic and so are various other things they put in the plastic, but the issues with bottled water run much deeper than the bottle itself.
Bottled water is full of hormone-disrupting chemicals. Lots of different anti-estrogens and anti-androgens are present in most bottled water. When compared to glass estrogenicity in plastic bottled water is three times higher. We are exposing ourselves to these disruptors and most of us are not even aware of it.
Laboratory testing that was done by the Environmental Working Group actually found that most popular bottled water brands contain a mixture of 38 different pollutants among those were cancer-causing chlorination byproducts. Drinking bottled water increases our risk of cancer, no I am not joking, it really does! One more recent study actually found that 11 out of 18 bottled water samples induced estrogenic effects in a human cancer cell line, for more information on that please click here.
Some people choose to drink bottled water over tap water, this being because they think it is cleaner. Sadly it is not. There really is no difference between the two in most places. Tap water actually could be argued as safer because it is tested daily, while bottled water is only tested weekly, and yes, there is still fluoride in bottled water.
Testing done on bottled water has found a lot of odd things in it like mold, styrene, kerosene, and algae. While BPA is not used as often as it has been in the past it is still an issue as mentioned above. PET is also an issue (polyethylene terephthalate) as it may be leaching antimony trioxide (a flame retardant) into our water. The longer the water sits in these PET bottles the more chemicals are released into it. Warm temperatures, of course, speed this up drastically.
Workers who were exposed to antimony trioxide have reported things like skin irritation, miscarriage, and abnormal menstrual cycles. Antimony is something considered to be a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A single bottle of water can contain around 25,000 chemicals which are definitely a cause for alarm. It does not take a high level of chemicals to interfere with hormones, as little as one-tenth of an ounce is able to inhibit estrogenic activity by about sixty percent and androgenic activity by ninety percent. Bottled water is a waste of money!
Bottled water is also labeled in ways that misrepresent the product for example just because the bottle says “Glacier water” does not mean it came from a glacier. Here in the United States, we use almost three million plastic water bottles every hour of every day. Usually, only about thirty percent end up being recycled. A large number of them end up in the ocean. For more information on that please take the time to watch the video below. By the year 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
Producing these bottled waters are also having a toll on the environment as lots of energy is needed to get them made and where they need to be. For more on that please click here. Please take the time to educate others on the health risks associated with drinking bottled water. Bottled water is nothing more than a dangerous modern day convenience and it is not doing most of us any good. The only people who need to be drinking bottled water are those dealing with water emergencies. The average American should not be drinking bottled water.