All About Tap Water Vs Filtered Water

Given that humans, along with all other organisms, are largely made of water and need to drink significant amounts every day in order to remain healthy, the answer to the question of the healthiest type is of utmost importance. One of the questions raised is about the safety of tap water vs filtered water, the answer to which has been quite confused by marketing campaigns and other media trying to sell their point of view.

Marketing campaigns are not all bad. Thanks to them, many people have learned in the recent past that bottled drinks are bad for the environment. All those bottles require oil to produce the plastic they are made out of, and most bottles are not recycled but instead sit in landfills for the many years required for plastic to biodegrade. Even those that are recycled require energy to be turned into new products. So, environmentally speaking, bottled is not the best choice.

What people don't always know is that standards for bottled water are actually not as stringent as those for city tap. In the US, the testing rates required are actually lower, even for things like bacteria and toxic heavy metals. This means that bottled, which is largely sold as a healthier alternative to tap, may not be safer than tap.

A United States-based study have proven that some bottled brands have unsafe levels of contaminants. The study can only be expected to show the picture at that point in time, and thus means that all bottled brands need to be looked at with suspicion as potentially dangerous. The conclusion reached is that bottled is definitely not always safer than tap.

People who are concerned with the disadvantages of both bottled and tap waters often turn to filtration devices. This can be purchased from an outside company that then sells it to customers in large bottles, or it can be an in-home filtration system. In-home systems are both cheaper and the more ecologically friendly choice, though.

Many of the brands of bottled that people assume are from a spring or some other 'pure' location are actually just additionally purified tap. This means that the same effect, minus the negative environmental impact of the bottles and the price, can be achieved with an in-home filtration device. The resulting liquid will be nearly identical to these kinds of bottled.

Choosing an in-home purification device will let you achieve safer, cleaner water than either bottled or straight tap. You can be assured that the tap that goes in conforms to strict municipal standards, but the output will be free of any missed contaminants and the city's additives. Chlorine, chloramine and fluoride are concerns for some people, but a purification device will remove them.

Choosing tap water vs filtered water is a choice that everyone has to make for themselves. Taste sometimes plays a part, if the municipal tap doesn't taste appealing. From a safety standpoint, however, most experts say that tap in the United States is held to a sufficiently strict standard that it doesn't need to be additionally purified.

Author: Adriana Noton
Wastewater treatment company offers environmentally friendly septic tanks for commercial, residential or mobile use.