Bottled water is expensive and has a large environmental impact. The average person uses two gallons of drinking water a day for consumption and cooking. A family of four would use approximately 2900 gallons of water per year. If you had to pay this amount of money for water, you may not use bottled water for cooking purposes and may use your contaminated tap water for cooking instead. If you are using tap water for cooking that has contaminants such as lead and disinfection by-products, these substances can end up in your food and be ingested.
Bottled water has to be filled into containers and transported.
It takes a tremendous amount of energy and resulting pollution to manufacture plastic containers, fill those containers and transport water to and from the store. It is ironic to buy bottled water to obtain healthy water quality, when the act of doing so contributes to the degradation of our drinking water resources. The chemical production for water containers and the pollution as a result of manufacture and transport is a contributor to our air and water quality problems. Sometimes water travels great distances as consumers are lead to believe waters from foreign countries hold benefits not found from local water sources. A small amount of the water containers may be recycled, but most end up in landfills or are incinerated.