If we are to avoid water bottles, then what water is safe to drink? tap where I live is filled with crap. I was thinking brita, but it is made of plastic.. maybe plastic that won't go into the water as much, since it is more solid compared to water bottles?

I could always boil the tap, but who has time to do all that? any better solutions or ideas?

thanks

Hi Mel67,

Great post. You are actually bringing up two subjects here - what to put water in and how to get safe drinking water. I will respond to both items separately.
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Water Bottles

We should avoid plastics for drinking water - especially reusing plastic bottles again and again. If the bottle has been exposed to heat - like in a hot car - it has leached a lot of plastic into what is in it. Now, if you are dying in the desert and come across a plastic bottle of water - drink up! What we are talking about is exposure to plastics over time. Plastics are potent estrogen like molecules that will cause a rise in total body estrogen if we ingest them. Don't think of this as some great NBE plan - it means bad health and a likely trip through estrogen dominance land.

Better choices for drinking containers are glass, stainless steel and polycarbonate.

Glass is great because it will not leach. You will often have glass containers from juice or other beverages that can be reused. The downside is that they can break.

Stainless steel also does not give off anything nasty. Some drinking bottles are made of this and also some thermos bottles are too. Don't get it confused with aluminum. Aluminum although probably okay, some researchers are still concerned with it regarding things like Alzheimer's (neither proven nor disproven to my satisfaction yet).

Polycarbonate does not leach like plastic. It looks a lot like plastic and is unbreakable. I have several glasses and water containers made from it. However, it should not be exposed to heat because when it is it leaches some toxic stuff. If you had a water bottle made of polycarbonate and it sat in a hot car then pour out the water - you can use the bottle again once it cools down (does not leach when cool).

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Drinking water

I think the best way to go with drinking water is either get a reverse osmosis system for your home or purchase reverse osmosis filtered water for you drinking and cooking. I do both. The unit for my home did not cost very much (less than $200) and it filters the water and stores it in an under sink stainless steel container. It has a tap right next to the sink - push and fresh filtered water comes out.

The filtration systems that you can buy that filter the water you pour in the top usually have a plastic container but you can find them in polycarbonate. Here is one I googled just now and if you spent more than the 30 seconds I just did you could probably find more at a lower price:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5854374

You can also get reverse osmosis water from automatic water dispensers. There are several in my city. I use these places to refill my polycarbonate 5 gallon water jugs I use for water in my office. 5 gallons costs $3 - very inexpensive for only a little hassle of going to refill the jugs. The most costly part of that set up was the ceramic basin that dispenses the water. That set me back about $50. But I only had to buy it once, so, just a little pain in the long run.


So - apparently I have a lot to say about water... lol.

Best wishes,
waxingmoon

good quetion!I think if the water is in the brita filter for short amount of time it should be fine. Also, if you reuse a bottle and the bottle is not in there for long periods of time it should be okay as well. I will buy a water bottle and drink it - if it tastes platicky i will toss out and use the bottle later but again i don't expose it to heat or leave teh water in there for days to absorb the bad estrogens.

thanks so much for the informative response. I will look into this and see what I can do soon enough. This is a very important subject that alot of us need to think about and attempt to act on, if we have not already.

take care waxingmoon :)

Wow, I had no idea!! And I do this a lot usually, I carry around my 1-Lt bottle and re-fill it from another, bigger plastic container. Bad me. This could explain a lot, as well.

Will look for glass containers.



Thanks mel67 and waxi!