Is bottled water any safer than tap water?

Do you drink bottled or tap, or both? Do you have a Brita or another filtered system?

We use to have PUR filter on our water tap and did so for many years, but since moving west we never bothered installing it again. We found the filters not only expensive, but it made me crazy to have these huge pieces of plastic that we're expected to turf once they're used up.

Bottled water is tap water so why not drink straight from the tap and that's what we've been doing ever since we decided not to put another filter on our tap. I admit that I do occasionally buy bottled water when I've forgotten or have been too lazy to carry my own, but I'm now making more of an effort to stop buying water bottles that contribute to landfill and carry my own water on a regular basis. After all I never go out the door for a run without carrying my water so why shouldn't I do this every time I go out the door?

Some things to think about:
- most water bottles end up in landfill
- bottled water is tap water.
- bottling water for sale (for profit) creates us to think of water as a privilege and not a basic human need for survival.
- the environmental impact of producing the plastics to contain the water and then ship the water to be sold. Think about who does this really benefit?

You can read more here and you can check out Co-op America's site via my sidebar and search the water debate there.