Every homeowner wants to ensure that their family is consuming water that is fresh, clean and safe to drink. When you have tap water that is unreliable or contains contaminants, bottled water might be an appealing option, but does it really have fewer impurities? What is the environmental toll of purchasing all of that bottled water, even if you are recycling? At Hague Quality Water of Maryland, we are committed to helping all of our clients understand the differences between tap water and bottled water and finally answering whether or not bottled water is safer than tap water.
Is Bottled Water Safer Than Tap Water?
In short, the answer is no. Comparing bottled water and tap water is like comparing the brewed coffee you get at Starbucks to brewed coffee that you might make at home. The Starbucks coffee you purchased at the store has other costs factored in, but at the end of the day, the coffee is very similar to the same coffee you’ll make at home. The difference in price between the two is largely for convenience and the status that comes along with purchasing your coffee instead of brewing it yourself.
When it comes to bottled water and tap water, the price difference between the two can be quite extreme. In many cases, people spend at least 240 times more per gallon of water, and depending on the brand of water you are purchasing that figure could go as high as 10,000 times more. Interestingly, almost 65% of retail bottled water is just bottled tap water, making it no safer than tap water at your own home.
When thinking about the safety of bottled water, you should also consider the plastic that it comes in. Both the bottles and caps are made of plastic, and that plastic will need to be recycled in order to reduce the damaging environmental impact it has. It’s always best to skip the plastic in the first place and use a reusable water bottle or traditional glass. Even a reusable plastic container is a better idea than a traditional single-use water bottle that will get used once and tossed into a trash can or recycling bin.
The plastic that composes bottled water can also fragment or splinter, which mixes in small pieces of plastic and chemicals with the water itself. It isn’t necessarily highly dangerous to consume them, but if you were given a choice between water that did not potentially become contaminated with plastic and water that has heated up multiple times as it was transported in a cheap plastic bottle, which would you choose?
Why Do People Think That Bottled Water Is Safer Than Tap Water?
A lot of the misconceptions around bottled water stem from marketing designed to make you think that tap water is dangerous and bottled water can be trusted. You can see this in commercials that show clean spring water deep in a forest or imply that special treatments have been performed. In reality, all public water systems that deliver water to your home are required to follow the regulations established by the Environmental Protection Agency and other state agencies. These regulations set specific limits for different minerals and contaminants. This helps to make sure that the quality across the country is within a relatively specific range.
Surprisingly, the framework for deciding whether or not bottled water is safe is different. Is bottled water safer than tap water? It might even be worse! In some cases, the allowable contaminant level in bottled water is actually higher than the level for the same substance in public water supplies. This means that the bottled water you are paying a premium for could be worse for your health than the water already flowing from your tap. Bottled water is not necessarily any safer, cleaner or purer than the drinking water that is being delivered to your home.
Does That Mean That Tap Water Is Safe?
While we have established that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water, it’s also important to acknowledge that your tap water also might not be perfectly safe. When you work with Hague Quality Water of Maryland, you will have access to quality testing to determine exactly what is present in your water. Our tests can go into a great amount of detail depending on what your concerns are, and we can also test your water if you use a private well instead of traditional municipal sources.
Once we complete testing, we can make recommendations to you regarding what filtration systems or treatments would be most appropriate to make your water cleaner than traditional tap water and cleaner than bottled water too. We have a comprehensive range of water treatment solutions that include water softeners and water filtration devices, including:
- High performance water softeners
- Comprehensive water softeners
- Efficient water softeners
- Compact water softeners
- Reverse osmosis systems
- Salt-free chlorine removal systems
- Iron removal systems
- UV disinfection systems
- Acid neutralizers
- And more!
It’s our goal to help homeowners throughout the area consume water that is clean and safe to drink, cook with, bathe in, wash with and more. We don’t want you to think twice about using the economical water that is coming out of your own taps or get drawn into the cycle of buying expensive bottled water.
Test and Treat Your Water with Hague Quality Water of Maryland
If you are concerned about the quality and contents of your water, we are here to help with your water improvement projects. Whether you need the Hague WaterMax® BEQ System or additional filtration beyond that, our team cares deeply about the health and safety of your family. We offer a convenient mail-in water testing kit for conducting a complete water test at home. If you’d prefer to drop off samples, you can also do so easily. For additional assistance, call Hague Quality Water of Maryland at (410) 757-2992.
