What's on tap

~Bottled water is under assault.

Cities, restaurants are trading in bottled water for tap; asap's MEGAN SCOTT looks at the pros and cons of bottled water.

Tap water: it's free, it's right there. Why aren't you having some? Call it the attack on bottled water.

Last month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order prohibiting city departments from buying bottled water, following a similar ban in Santa Barbara. In Michigan, the Ann Arbor City Council banned buying or serving bottled water at city events. Last fall, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson asked city employees to stop buying and drinking it.

And the attack is coming from more than cities. Some restaurants are going off the bottle, according to a recent New York Times article. And the United Church of Canada has advised its 590,000 members to stop purchasing bottled water.

The reason for the attack? To reduce the waste from empty bottles and the energy consumed in manufacturing and shipping them.

But isn't bottled water more convenient and more pure?

asap spoke to some experts on both sides of the debate for this list of pros and cons of bottled water.

PROS:

1. Convenience: There's no such thing as a 24-hour mobile tap. Water fountains and public restroom sinks can harbor germs, and most restaurants are going to frown upon a customer who goes there only for tap water. Of course, filling a bottle with tap water at home is an option. But the water is going to be lukewarm by midmorning. Freeze it, and you wind up with water droplets everywhere.

2. Taste: Why do so many people order lemon with tap water in restaurants? Or stick to drinking Coke even though they know they should switch to Diet Coke? Because they can taste the difference -- and, similarly, many people prefer the taste of bottled water.

3. Choices: With bottled water, there's artesian, sparkling, spring, vitamin, fitness, energy, mineral, purified, fluoridated, and the list goes on. With tap, the only choice is -- tap.

4. Health: Municipal water contains residual amounts of chlorine, which is used to keep the water clean, and many cities add fluoride to promote dental health. A report last year from the National Academy of Sciences cited concerns about bone fractures and a discoloration and weakening of tooth enamel because of high fluoride levels in municipal water. Nitrates can be found in water in rural areas, says Bill Morris, professor of food science and technology at University of Tennessee. Sometimes, he says, when old copper pipes are used, lead can seep into the water. There are also several countries where the water is unsafe to drink.

CONS:

1. Cost: Go find last month's water bill. That amount included showering, washing dishes, clothes, brushing your teeth, filling pots with water to cook. Now how much did you spend on bottled water? Bottled water is 100 to 1,000 times more expensive than municipal water, says Amy Zander, a professor of environmental engineering at Clarkson University.

2. Health: The Natural Resources Defense Council tested more than 100 brands of bottled water and found that many of them had trace amounts of chlorine, says Dr. Gina Solomon, senior scientist for NRDC. Most bottled water contains no fluoride, and some believe moderate amounts of the compound help prevent tooth decay in children and adults.

3. Regulation: The EPA regulates tap water; the FDA regulates bottled water. An NRDC report argues that the FDA has weaker bacteria rules for bottled water than the EPA has for tap water and that the FDA also does not test bottled water as frequently as the EPA tests tap. And what about deceptive advertising? The NRDC discovered that a bottle labeled "spring water" (with mountains and a lake on the label) actually came from a well in an industrial parking lot next to a hazardous waste site. Solomon says bottled water can be called pure spring water as long as it comes from a ground water source and bubbles at the surface.

4. Environmental: Not everyone recycles, so water bottles wind up cluttering landfills. (The same could be said for soda bottles, aluminum cans and all the other paper and plastic.) Manufacturing bottles, filling them with water and shipping the final product also consume fuel and emit greenhouse gases, says Solomon.

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asap reporter Megan Scott is based in New York.

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