Should I drink bottled water or use a reusable bottle?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Evo
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Water
Click For Summary
The discussion centers on the environmental impact and safety concerns of bottled water versus using reusable bottles filled with tap water. Many participants express a preference for tap water due to its lower environmental footprint and cost, while acknowledging that bottled water is often just repackaged tap water. Convenience is a significant factor, with some individuals using bottled water only when traveling or in areas with questionable tap water quality. Concerns about plastic waste and the energy used in bottled water production are frequently mentioned, alongside the idea that tap water can be just as safe and palatable with proper filtration. Overall, the consensus leans towards promoting reusable bottles and tap water as a more sustainable choice.

Do you dfrink bottled water?

  • I drink bottled water only if I am away from home, for example bike riding

    Votes: 28 45.9%
  • I drink bottled water only

    Votes: 7 11.5%
  • I drink only tap water, filtered or unfiltered

    Votes: 25 41.0%
  • I use a refillable bottle

    Votes: 21 34.4%

  • Total voters
    61
  • #61
Schrodinger's Dog said:
Why are grapefruit called grapefruit I wonder?
From the OED:
OED said:
grapefruit ("greIpfru:t). Also grape-fruit. [f. grape
n.1 + fruit n.; so called because it grows in clusters.]

On the other hand, the first quotation in the same OED article is:
OED said:
1814 J. Lunan Hortus Jamaicensis II. 171 The shaddock
was originally regarded by Linneus as only a variety of the
orange... There is a variety known by the name of grape-fruit
on account of its resemblance in flavour to the grape; this
fruit is not near so large as the shaddock.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #62
Schrodinger's Dog said:
Actually I don't like Coke it's too sweet.
I note that Coke (and most national brands) has less sugar in it than the local brands. A can of Coke has around 28 grams of sugar I believe. But the local stuff has 40 and up. The most I have seen is 48 grams. Fruit juices also have much more sugar than Coke. Even Coke at 28 grams is overwhelmingly sweet. I wonder if there is a market for less sweet soda.
 
  • #63
Healey01 said:
Ohh that gave me a great marketing product for Pop companies!
Dehydrated soda! You take a bottle of their $1.50 water, and add a $0.50 packet to make your own soda. Basically like coolaid, but you'd have to have some reagent that reacts with water to make it release co2. That way when you're hiking in the woods and need a refreshing drink, you can have a Coke! Thats what they want right? To replace water? I can be a millionaire...
No you can't.
http://www.sodaclubusa.com/default.htm
 
  • #64
Shamefully, I only drink bottled water -- tho' I have tried to argue the environmental benefits of tap water with my gf -- plus I told her the plastic makes you impotent -- she was having none of it :biggrin:
 
  • #65
I was just watching the news this morning and NYC is among the best cities in the country with healthy tap water.
 
  • #66
jimmysnyder said:
I note that Coke (and most national brands) has less sugar in it than the local brands. A can of Coke has around 28 grams of sugar I believe. But the local stuff has 40 and up. The most I have seen is 48 grams. Fruit juices also have much more sugar than Coke. Even Coke at 28 grams is overwhelmingly sweet. I wonder if there is a market for less sweet soda.

Remember I live in the UK, You'd have to provide a link to sugar in colas before I'd believe that, I've heard the opposite you see. I know they use inordinate amounts of sugar because they did a documentary on Coke and colas in general. I never liked it anyway, the documentary explained why, I grew out of my sweet tooth ages ago. Apparently the ridiculous amount of sugar has to do with balancing out the bitter taste of the phosphoric acid and the caffeine. I stopped drinking Coke age 12. The last time I drank it was in a whiskey :smile: I tend to go for natural fruit juices in general, where I can be sure there is no sugar added, even if they are very sweet.

I don't no why people defend Coke? Aren't they one of the axis of evil of business? :-p
 
Last edited:
  • #67
Schrodinger's Dog said:
You'd have to provide a link to sugar in colas before I'd believe that, I've heard the opposite you see.
Here is a link. The figure of 28 grams in my previous post is a mistake. I think that is the figure on the 2 liter bottle for the amount of sugar in 8 oz. of soda, while a can contains 12 oz. I will look into this a little closer next time I see a bottle of a local brand of soda. In the link you will see that while Coke has around 40 grams of sugar per can, it is relatively low on the list compared to other sodas and fruit juices. I was taken aback by the standard deviations in the data.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/scripts/popreslt.pl
 
  • #68
"oz."s don't sit well with us British folk either :-p
 
  • #69
J77 said:
"oz."s don't sit well with us British folk either :-p
An oz. is a measure of liquid volume equal to 0.00017361111 barrels, OK? Look 200 years ago we bloodied your noses because you were forcing us to use the metric system without representation. Get over it.
 
  • #70
jimmysnyder said:
An oz. is a measure of liquid volume equal to 0.00017361111 barrels, OK? Look 200 years ago we bloodied your noses because you were forcing us to use the metric system without representation. Get over it.
Pah -- you were all Europeans back then :wink:
 
  • #71
jimmysnyder said:
An oz. is a measure of liquid volume equal to 0.00017361111 barrels, OK? Look 200 years ago we bloodied your noses because you were forcing us to use the metric system without representation. Get over it.

We were fighting Napoleon as well yo know :rolleyes:, actually we then came back and burned down the Whitehouse. The wars were pretty much stalemates, no one won them as such. In the End it was decided that the cost of war would be to great to press so we left you to it. Anyone who thinks it was a stunning victory for one side or the other probably doesn't know the history.

Oh as I say I'm English the only one of those drinks I recognised was Seven Up. So that list is not very useful, thanks for trying though anyway. :smile: For some reason in this country they don't believe that how much sugar is in soft drinks comparatively would be much use telling people on the web, I couldn't find anything? Perhaps it's a conspiracy?

J77 said:
"oz."s don't sit well with us British folk either :-p

16 oz to the pound you young whipper snapper :) what would you rather Kg's :rolleyes: :-p
 
Last edited:
  • #72
Schrodinger's Dog said:
For some reason in this country they don't believe that how much sugar is in soft drinks comparatively would be much use telling people on the web, I couldn't find anything? Perhaps it's a conspiracy?
This site has some info, but not in tabular form. If you click on a particular brand, and then on one of the sub-brands under the words "Nutritional information", then it will display the sugar content. I believe the units are grams per 100 ml.
http://www.britvic.com/Brands.aspx
Here are a few results:
7-up regular - 10.6
Pepsi regular - 11.0
Britvic 55 orange - 11.3
Red Devil - 15

Note that in the US, Coke has slightly less sugar than Pepsi. 39 grams per can (a can contains 12 oz. or 355 ml) for Coke vs. 41 for Pepsi. That would work out to:
US Coke - 11.0
US Pepsi - 11.5
 
  • #73
Hmm I'm still not convinced. I'd expect orange juice 55% to have more sugar than coke definitely, fruit juices often do. However without seeing a product list of our drinks, it's impossible to judge. I tell you what I'll do, when I've finished my assessment(This Saturday) I'll look into it, and if I can find out the exact values in our drinks in comparrison to coke, in grams or ounces - don't worry I work in both at a stretch - :smile: I will.

It may be that English coke has more or less sugar as well, it's not easy to equate without UK sites, and for some odd reason there appears to be very little will to compile comparisons like US sites do. However walking round a supermarket with a piece of paper should suffice. It's easy enough to compare. Even if that sort of information isn't compiled on the internet.

High caffiene drinks I wouldn't count as soft drinks as such, like Red Bull, Red Devil tends to be drunk more mixed with alcohol. And the high caffiene explains the high sugar. Both are available to kids though?
 
Last edited:
  • #74
i do not drink anything out of a plastic bottle except when i fel dehydrated in the airport or on the road in the car. I drink tap water but greatly prefer glass bottled pelegrino water from italy in the green bottle. i recycle the bottles.

it tastes much better than my tap water at home, even after filtering the water through a device on the fridge. if i could afford it i would drink it exclusively.

i noticed last week though the plain tap water in west seattle was better than my filtered tap water.

sometimes the problem is in the house pipes though because i have noticed sometimes the water entering my house at the outside tap is better.

i never drink soda pop. that's just asking for your teeth to dissolve.
 
  • #75
So far, the winner is the local brand of grape flavored soda which has 51 grams of sugar per 12 oz. (355 ml) can compared to Coca Cola at 39 grams.
 
  • #76
Might as well drink molasses.
 
  • #77
A local brand of orange flavored soda has 52 grams of sugar per 12 oz (355 ml) can.
 
  • #78
I drink both. Typically if there's bottled water around though I'll drink that.

I just like the taste of it more. Even filtered water doesn't taste as good.
 
  • #79
Nope, it's a complete waste of money and is horrible for the environment.
 
  • #81
hey, and the plastic bottle left out is useless too(in the long run, that is..)
 
  • #82
Hmm Threads beat people in having a second life.
 
  • #83
The legend said:

I didn't think it was a secret that Coke and Pepsi's 'purified' water was nothing more than tap water with a few minerals. Dasani lasted a couple of weeks in the UK before being pulled (partly because the truth came out, and partly due to a contamination at one of their plants).

I do drink bottled water, like 'spring' water, but drink tap water when at home.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #84
Andre said:
Hmm Threads beat people in having a second life.

LOL! :smile:

They don't beat though...:wink:
 
  • #85
I drink water from the tap, but I almost always put it in an old Gatorade bottle. I may be wrong, but I figure the longer I keep it, the less chemicals will leach out of the plastic (diminishing log or e curve).

And yes, I wash/sterilize it regularly.
 
  • #86
George Jones said:
I have moved around quite a bit, and I usually drink tap water. I have lived two places, however, where I didn't/don't drink tap water - the U.S. Virgin Islands and here in Saint John.

Here, few people drink tap water :eek: ; if you lived here, I don't think you would.

In my area at work, everyone drinks from a water cooler that uses 18.5 litre bottles of spring water. People fill up their personal water bottles from the water cooler. Even the water I boil to make my tea comes the water cooler - tea made from the tap here gives me heartburn.

At home, my wife and I used to buy 4 litre (about 1 gallon) bottles, but we recently switch to two 10 litre bottles that we refill at the supermarket. This water is filtered by reverse osmosis and other methods.

Edit: fill up a 4 litre bottlle with Saint John tap water to see that the water is not clear - it has a slight brownish colour.

We have terrible water here. This weekend, we had our seventh boil water advisory in two years. It made the Canadian national news,

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1611525289.
 
  • #87
George Jones said:
We have terrible water here. This weekend, we had our seventh boil water advisory in two years. It made the Canadian national news,

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1611525289.
You're excused. Also, the gripe was about the little 20 ounce or smaller bottles that people buy and use once, then toss.
 
  • #88
My wife and I buy Rubbermaid bottles with captive hinged lids, and we fill them from our tap every day. Even when we lived in Skowhegan, with mucky-tasting, heavily chlorinated water, we always drank tap water. I bought and installed a 2-stage under-counter filtration system (equivalent to large Cuno filters) that had fiber filter elements wrapped over activated charcoal. No need to buy water.

When I was traveling as a consultant, I'd always grab a big bucket of ice from the ice machines at any hotel/motel I was staying at, and let it melt, so I could drink that. I figured out fast that the lodging industry would spend the money to filter the water used in their ice-makers.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 28 ·
Replies
28
Views
9K
  • · Replies 13 ·
Replies
13
Views
3K