If you have not already checked out Tapped, the 2009 multiple award winner for best documentary film, I highly recommend it. The film does a great job of taking the viewer inside one of the most socially relevant and controversial issues facing the public: access to safe drinking water.
The bottled water boom of the past two decades has changed the way we view water. Bottled water manufacturer's have managed to turn clean drinking water into a commodity to be bought and sold at a high price to the consumer. Due to a lack of regulation bottled water is often subject to less testing than tap water and in some cases is just bottled tap water.
According to the film Americans will consume 29,000,000 single serve water bottles every year. The cost to the environment is fairly drastic; from the plastic bottles themselves to the fuel used to transport them and the petrochemical plants where they are manufactured. That's a lot of pollution and contamination.
There is a simple solution to the problem of bottled water waste. We can change our habits and start using reusable bottles, ones that don't have BPA and other harmful chemicals that can leach into our drinking water, and use filtered tap water instead. In most cases using a water filter is safer and cheaper than buying bottled water while still tasting just as good if not better.
