What you need to know about bottled water
Manila is scorching!
According to weather reports, it is about 27 degrees Celsius in the city, but for certain it feels more like “WAY TOO HOT”. What better way to cool yourself down than drinking some ice-cold water?
There are many benefits to drinking your 8 ounces 8 times a day, give or take. A lot of beauty experts will even call water the “fountain of youth”. And with all the bottled water options available, keeping yourself hyrdated has never been easier.
BUT (and its a pretty big, JLo proportioned one)…
Did you know that “regular” water is often just as healthy and safe as bottled water? (Provided you have filtered tap water at home, of course). Marketing will make you believe otherwise, though. This high demand for bottled water has a tremendous impact on our earth. It takes millions of barrels of oil to produce all those plastic water bottles (that end up as trash), add to the fact that bottled water needs to be shipped from its source, which usually means it comes from a gajillion miles away. Which also means an increase in its carbon footprint. Many restaurants in California have actually banned bottled water, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has banned the use of city funds to buy bottled water meant for single-servings, in an effort to protect natural resources and lessen garbage.
Furthermore, leaving your bottled water in the car and having it warmed by the sun, or being exposed to any form of heat, poses potential dangers to you because of the type of plastic that the manufacturer may have used. Certain types of plastic leak chemicals into the water and have been found to cause cancer. And we thought we were being healthy!
Some purists WILL declare that buying and drinking bottled water should be labeled just as unfashionable as smoking. Now while we won’t go that far and name-call or mud-sling, it would help if we tried to lessen our bottled water habits and be better informed about our choices.
Check it out for yourself: Take a peek at the plastic utensils or bottles in your home.
Many water bottles are labeled with a triangle and have a number 1 inside, which means it is ‘polyethylene terephthalate’ (PETE) - This number means it is relatively safe if the item is exposed to heat, but must not be reused again.
What if there is 4? This means the plastic is called ‘low density polyethylene’, or LDPE. This is a safer form of plastic.
Those that you need to avoid are plastics labeled with a 3, 6 or 7. Surprisingly, some baby bottles and microwave containers have this label. Styrofoam is also labeled with one of these numbers.
Next time we reach for a water bottle, let’s make sure we are making the best choice for our health, our budget, and our planet.
