Do you encourage people to stop buying bottled water?

I wish my spouse and kid wouldn’t as it’s a huge waste of money. Our municipal water is as good as bottled and much cheaper. But we can afford it so not worth the argument.

If they ask me, absolutely. Most people who care don’t buy them, so I assume people who still do that are intentionally abusing the planet.

I encourage them when the water is good. I went to bottled water about three years ago because my water tastes like a big chemical. That’s three years ago after 50 years of life rarely drinking any bottled water.

I receive the reports from the water company, they have to test twice a year. They test one day in December and one day in January a few days apart. Scam in my opinion. I don’t trust it. I would seriously consider a water system if I wasn’t trying to find a new house.

I buy gallons mostly. I figure that’s better than individual bottles.

Bottled water is terrible because of the plastic, I’m right on board with that.

When we go camping I always clean up the campsite. In the last 10 years plastic water bottles have taken over beer cans as #1 litter. >-<

We all have a lot of reusable water bottles that we use all thetime, whether going somewhere on a hot day or on a hike. None of us, and none of my friends, buy bottled water.

For those who don;t ike their local water, one can buy 2½ gallon reusable jugs at Whole Foods (and other stores) and fill them from a filtered water dispenser in the store.

I have wonderful water in my home, but my daughter, who lives in Concord, has water coming out of the faucet that is best described as butt-nasty. She buys lots of water flats, and I approve.

I don’t buy bottled water for home. My friends do. I don’t lecture them. Me lecturing them isn’t going to change their behavior, any more than if I were to lecture them about smoking or vaping or drinking, or if they were to lecture me about drinking diet soda. Nobody wants to hear lectures and nobody is changing their behavior because friends are lecturing them.

The only time I will buy bottles of water is if I’m out shopping and need hydration. I’m just as likety to buy Diet Coke than I am to buy bottled water.

The town I grew up in had nasty water. Very strong suffer taste until dad got a water softener.
We still drank from the hose. That’s probably when I learned that I could plug my nose from the back of my nose by some flap without using my fingers.

* sulfer * taste. Like rotten eggs.

I agree about water bottles. My family uses bottles while we’re traveling, but otherwise we have a home filtration system. We recycle, even though we must make an effort to do it.

No. I drink bottled water, myself.

Folks who can’t afford a filtration system here have to drink the nastiest tasting water. Tastes moldy

I love my tap water. Tastes just like it should – nothing!

@Dutchess_III Ummm…try * sulfur * <<giggles>>

I did @smudges. Gigging.

LOL Love you…too funny.

@JLeslie You can get an under sink water filtration system for a few hundred dollars and even take it with you to your next house.

@gorillapaws I actually have been trying the water of friends who have water purifiers to see if their water tastes better to me. Do you have a recommendation? I have been thinking about getting my water tested actually (by a government agency). When I lived in Clearwater suddenly my water tasted like a big chemical, but I still drank it most of the time not listening to my own taste buds. Several months later I received a notice that the water had had thousands of times more of some chemical than allowed. I thought I kept that letter, but I don’t seem to have it anymore. Then there was a report of water possibly purposely being contaminated with a chemical a year or two ago in a neighboring county. That made national news if I remember correctly. I am not paranoid of terrorists, I think it is very likely the water treatment plants are screwing something up, but who knows. As far as I know these are three completely separate water companies I am talking about, but I really don’t know if they are tied together in some way.

I live in N Cal. Our water is tested twice daily for dozens of hazardous chemicals, so it is theoretically safe to drink. But it tastes terrible. We used to buy 2.5 gal jugs of water. When our kids went to school we started with the ½ litre bottles, but the bottle waste added up so quickly. I estimated 200 bottles a year! We bit the bullet and got an RO system from Costco for $180. The water from it tastes great and we can drink all we want. Because it removes the minerals our steamer pot, tea kettle, and coffee maker do not accumulate minerals. That reduces our cleaning work. No more bottle waste, no more lugging water from the store. Can’t beat that!

^^Do you have a link to what you purchased?

We need to get a filtration system. The water tastes fine but Lord, the calcium deposits it leaves!

@JLeslie – this is what I got. Costco doesn’t sell it any more. It is more expensive from the vendor now: https://www.premierh2o.com/collections/reverse-osmosis/products/531407-ro-pure-with-bn

Costco sells this now: https://www.costco.com/aquverse-5-stage-complete-ro-system.product.100516084.html
Looks like it does the same thing.

@Dutchess_III – I just figured out that I can easily remove hard water deposits by soaking paper towels with apple cider vinegar then sticking the paper over the deposits for half an hour. The deposits become easy to wipe away afterwards.

Well sure. But a filter would be easier.

Activated charcoal filters will only remove chlorine. The minerals will still be there. Water softeners swap sodium ions with certain ions in the dissolved minerals to form more soluble minerals. Those will rinse cleanly. But the sodium ions will ruin a reverse osmosis membrane, so you will have to choose between the two.

Got cha @RocketGuy. Thanks.