1. Plastic Water Bottles Cost Too Much

According to Natural Resources Defense Council you could be “spending 10,000 times more per gallon” when paying for bottled water than if you simply drank from the tap. Unfiltered tap water should be tested for contaminants before consuming, considering findings of Chromium 6 by The Environmental Working Group, and the dangerous lead levels found during the Flint Water Crisis.

If you drink 3 or more bottles of water per day, lets say 3, you need 28 bottles a week. If you buy one 24 pack of Poland Spring® at $10.38 per week for a year, leaving you 4 water bottles short per week, you’d spend over $530. With one reusable water bottle, you would only pay the cost of the water bottle once, and could refill with filtered water at home as much as you like each day, if you had a water filtration system at home for access to filtered water.

2. The Environment Doesn’t Need More Plastic Pollution

When it comes to reusable water bottles, you don’t dispose of them, you keep them. A very disconcerting IFL Science article shows us just how much plastic is stacking up in the ocean; Plastic In Oceans Will Outweigh Fish By 2050. If just one person stops buying one 24 pack of plastic water bottles per year, that is 1,248 less individual plastic bottles that may have ended up in the ocean, or in a landfill. It’s nice to see recycling efforts when it comes to the issue of plastic pollution, like the designer sunglasses being made from recycled plastic by Sea2see. Every person has the ability to use less plastic or to help with plastic recycling efforts.

3. Wildlife Can Be Harmed From Plastic Pollution

Some of the animals affected by plastic pollution include some of the most endangered animal species, including Loggerhead turtles, African penguins, and Hawaiian monk seals, according to a study reported on by Daily Mail. People are able to help the animals dying from, getting caught in, and choking on plastic pollution by making choices as consumers that promote wildlife sustainability, and recycling plastic products using services like TerraCycle.

4. Filtered Water On-the-Go

Some reusable bottles now have filters which can provide water filtration on the go. You could fill up a filtered reusable bottle from a drinking fountain at a store, or a park, and avoid buying a single plastic water bottle that could cost over a dollar, just for one bottle! Pure Blue H2O is currently researching options for a reusable bottle with built-in filtration that we’d like to make available for our customers in the future.

5. Controversy Surrounds the Bottled Water Industry

Here is a tweet from Peter Gleick, the author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water about Nestlé owned Poland Spring bottled water:

Fun fact. There is no water from the original “Poland Spring” in Nestle’s “Poland Spring” bottled water. #bottledandsold. So admits Nestle. — Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) June 6, 2010

The Washington Post wrote about a recent Poland Spring® lawsuit in August, which challenges the authenticity of the brand promoting the water as 100% Natural Spring Water.

According to an article posted by World Wildlife Fund article urging people to reconsider using bottled water “there are more standards regulating tap water in Europe and the US than those applied to the bottled water industry.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website features bottled water information including a list of Reported Outbreaks Associated with Bottled Water.

The demand for bottled water can partially be attributed to fears amidst findings of toxic contaminant levels in tap water, such as the harrowing amount of lead exposure resulting from the 2014 Flint Water Crisis. A recent article by The Independent states “63% of Americans worried a “great deal” about the pollution in drinking water — the highest percentage since 2001.” Seems logical that so many would feel safer drinking bottled water considering the growing fears centering around tap water quality.

The Environmental Working Group recommends that you drink filtered tap water, they even made a list of “Top 5 Reasons to Choose Filters Over Bottled Water.”

If you are curious about the quality of a bottle water brand you may be unsure about, why not test the water yourself for various contaminants with a Home Water Testing Kit.