It’s so easy to toss a pack of bottled water into the shopping cart when you’re buying groceries for the week.
Convenient and seemingly inexpensive, those bottles of water often don’t prompt a second thought. But is convenience really worth the true cost of all those plastic bottles? Let’s take a look at why you should reconsider buying your water in bottles.
It’s a Waste of Money
Bottles of water haven’t always been so ubiquitous. Most of us grew up drinking from water fountains or glasses. At some point, water started showing up on the supermarket shelves in clear plastic bottles. As beverage companies compete with each other to produce bottles of water to meet the demands of a more health-conscious nation, prices have gone down. Although you can now buy a large flat of bottled water from the club warehouse for what seems like minimal cost, take a moment and consider the true price. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC), in 2019 the average price for a gallon of bottled non-sparkling water was $1.18. Other researchers have estimated that the actual cost to produce a gallon of water is closer to $7.50. In the end, that’s nearly 2,000 times the price of water that comes out of the tap.
Plastic Water Bottles Can Be Linked to Health Issues
Many of us choose water over other bottled beverages for the health benefits. While water is certainly an excellent choice for anyone’s health, the bottle it comes in could actually pose a threat. The concern is the presence of bisphenol-A, more commonly referred to as BPA. An industrial chemical used in the process of creating certain plastics and resins, BPA can seep into food or liquids from plastic containers. Enough exposure to this chemical can affect the health of the brain and prostate gland of babies and young children.
Water Bottles Are Harming the Environment
Although plastic bottles can be recycled, plenty of them still end up in the landfill. It can take a single plastic bottle nearly a thousand years to break down. Many bottles never make it to a recycling bin or even the trash, and wind up in our oceans. Since plastic doesn’t dissolve, it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, polluting the water and harming the wildlife that ingest these microplastics. If you think these issues still don’t affect you, new research suggests that adult humans and even infants ingest quite a bit of microplastics.
There’s a Better Solution
Whether you opt for bottled water because of the convenience, the health benefits, or even the flavor, there is a much better way to get the same results. Invest in a water treatment system for your home, and you can have all the advantages of clean, filtered water without harming your health or the environment. The cost of installing such a system is quickly eclipsed by the hefty price of all those bottles of water. In the long run, you’ll save money by drinking filtered water from your own tap. At Salisbury Plumbing, we can help you get your Utah County home set up with a quality water filtration system. Say goodbye to those plastic bottles and contact us today to get started!
