Tap Water Vs. Bottled Water

This will not be a surprise for people who have read my pass blog posts. There was another debate within the office which has capitated the working day on Wednesday. For once, I was apart of this through invitation... Someone asked for my opinion (Which is always a good thing...). The topic of conversation was - what is better, tap or bottle water?


And like all things, I went into this debate/conversation thinking about the science of the topic. Because as much as I love the tap water in my home county, Yorkshire. I also passionately dislike the tap water within Wolverhampton. Therefore, I occasionally buy bottle water when I wanted some diluted juice/squash in my university years. So I had a keen interest in the topic. Was I better off when I was drinking the tap water in Yorkshire? Or getting the lovely budget bottled water at Uni?


Therefore, I researched. By that I mean that I read a few News articles as well as having a quick scan of the Water UK website... Not the research I would have done for my university coursework mind. But I found that in fairness, they are both fine to drink. There are only a few differences between them. So in this case, I just based my decision on the safety aspect of the water. And, there was a shocking difference between the two types of water - one which I was not really expecting. Hence why I'm making a blog post about it.


So which source of water is safer to consume?


The answer that I have found is that tap water is better! Purely because the bottled variety has less stringent safety tests that the tap variety. So bottled water is much likely to be contaminated or either be a source of infection transmission in some cases. But, don't suddenly stop buying the bottled variety as there are some points to clarify before I conclude.


The Research


The first main point to address is that due to the strict EU Drinking Water Directive, a standards which we for now have to follow, means that the water which comes out of the tap must have been tested. These tests are completed daily for reassurance to make sure that the water isn't contaminated or so that you can drink from it daily without causing harm. The latest research, stated of the Water UK website, recorded that the compliance rate within England and Wales stands at 99.96%. That's (Slightly) better than both the Scottish and Northern Irish compliance rate which stands at 99.89% and 99.86% respectively.
The bottled water variety are not tested as strictly. The Daily telegraph reported that the companies are only required to test their water products monthly. Plus once the water bottle is sealed in the factories those water bottles could be stored for months before actually consumed. So that one monthly test in the factory could happen some time before drinking.


Furthermore, water is enriched by chloride. Just like at the swimming pool, chlorine is used to maintain the high hygiene standards within the public water supply. Before you worry about chlorine as a toxin. Anything is a toxin is ingested in a high enough quantity. Take the topic of conversation- water! It's completely healthy and fine to drink 1.5 litres of it. But its lethal dose (LD in science) is just 6L for a 11.8 stone person (According to Source). It's actually called water intoxication in medicine. If water intoxication happens then sudden hypernatremia causes brain swelling, coma and respiratory arrest...

... So with the idea that anything can be a toxin. There is only 0.5mg/l of chlorine in the pipes at one time. The world health organisation (WHO) sets the maximum of chlorine consumption at 5mg. So you are fine at the tiny 0.5mg/L.

Do you know how many bottles of water are drank in the UK?

Just a picture to implement my view, from the internet,
A bottle which used to contain water,
Now, it's laying on a beach where any animal could mistake it for food 

A shocking 2.5 billion. Now that is a lot of bottles which are made from plastic. Normally I don't complain about single use plastic as it's really not the companies problem. It's up to use as consumers to depose of the product used correctly. And plastic is good material to use as a light but safe protector of your food product. Yet, I've been noticing so much litter recently. And the nature programmes of the BBC and other TV companies have been focusing so much on how humans are damaging the ecosystem. It's hard not to get annoyed at the problem of littering and how preventable it is... A good considerable amount of these 2.5 billion bottles don't get recycled. Some don't even make they way to a bin to be disposed of properly. So a few bottles that used to contain water get left to the elements and animals to deal with. Plus, bottled water is not cheap. Bottled water, depending on the area, can be up to 500x to 1000x more expensive than the tap cost (Source).

So is your New Years Resolution going to be to drink more tap water...?