I would like a website that identifies the sources of bottled water, as well as quality information etc. Perhaps tie it to a nonprofit company that tests the water for contaminants.

I think it would be interesting and informative. :\

I've picked up at the Glacier Springs plant, and it's far from spring water. They have a well drilled in the ground out in the desert.

Poland springs claims 1/3 of their water comes from Poland Spring, but sources say that has been dried up for decades.

quote Back in 2002, a pair of plaintiffs from Connecticut filed a class-action lawsuit against Poland Spring, claiming that the company was falsely advertising its source. The suit alleged that the original Poland Spring dried up in 1967, so it was false advertising to claim that all the water came from there. In the end, Nestlé did not admit to those allegations, but the company agreed to a settlement that included $10 million in discounts for consumers and donations to charity. Jane Lazgin, director of corporate communications at Nestlé Waters North America, said that "as a general rule we don't comment on legal matters," but said that the allegations were unfair, as company's labels reflected the multiple sources of water the company was using at the time of that lawsuit.

Thoughts?

Brad

I think that THIS IS WATER

I think that's an awesome idea, man!

While I would never suggest one can't or shouldn't do what they wish with their own hard earned money..................

I consider buying "bottled" water a huge waste of resources. That resource being money but, as I said before, it's your money, do what you want with it.

Edited: Correction to my previous statement, there are good reasons to buy water. A good example is the ground/well water near Canton/Ravenna, OH is almost undrinkable, it's so high in sulfur. But, other than situations such as that, my opinion stands as it was posted.

------------------
Ron
Count Down to A Better America: http://countingdownto.com/countdown/196044
Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, his upbringing, his environment, his culture, his mental state but … after a shooting, the problem is the gun?

My Uncle Frank was a staunch Conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died in Chicago. Since then he has voted Democrat. Shrug

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 09-04-2014).]

quote Originally posted by Fats: I've picked up at the Glacier Springs plant, and it's far from spring water. They have a well drilled in the ground out in the desert. Poland springs claims 1/3 of their water comes from Poland Spring, but sources say that has been dried up for decades. Thoughts?

Does that mean virgin oil doesn't come from virgins ?

Just buy a RO filter for drinking water, it pays for itself l less than a year and is the filtration many bottled water companies use. Removes particles larger than .001 of a micron.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/...251564344260&alt=web

quote Originally posted by Fats: I've picked up at the Glacier Springs plant, and it's far from spring water. They have a well drilled in the ground out in the desert. Poland springs claims 1/3 of their water comes from Poland Spring, but sources say that has been dried up for decades. Thoughts? Brad

A friend did some work there, it's just up a few miles away from my place and he said the original spring is behind a huge vault door like you see in those missile silos. No one in no one out of there ever when he was there working just down the haul. We have 18 wheel tankers going up and down rt. 4 all day and night long, where the water is coming from, Who Knows?

We have well water by the way, no filters needed pure as driven snow by the last testing anyway!

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't



Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

I buy bottled water for my carryin' around water so I can save my milk-jugs for my carryin' around beer!

I used to think Zippo's were stupid, when books of matches were free.
And than along came the Bic Lighter.

Ever try writing with a quil?...

Once--the goose came and wanted it back--them suckers bite HARD!

We water our carnivorous plants with spring water, because the tap water can killify 'em

Well, around here the ground water is likely heavily contaminated. The local chicken plant, and farms are just dumping their waste on the ground, and this includes some heavy doses of growth hormones.

Not only do the locals not eat the chicken from these plants if they can help it, they don't drink the water. Even good filters don't remove hormones and pesticides from the water. Reverse osmosis is expensive, and only sorta works.

So our choice is to either buy bottled water for a few dollars a week, or buy several thousands of dollars in filtration... Which would cost as much each week.

Then there is my job. I travel the country. I'm all over the place. I used to drink tap water, but some places made me sick. Not because the water was bad, but my stomach just wasn't used to whatever was in it. I switched to bottled water and no longer have that problem.

For some people bottled water is about the only option.

Brad

RO is cheap and with pre- and post-activated carbon filters it does filter out growth hormones as well as other hormones in the water . Seriously, if you drink only bottled water, a RO system will have no problem paying for itself in less than a year. Just do the math.

quote Originally posted by jmbishop: Seriously, if you drink only bottled water, a RO system will have no problem paying for itself in less than a year. Just do the math.

Agreed.

quote Originally posted by jmbishop: RO is cheap and with pre- and post-activated carbon filters it does filter out growth hormones as well as other hormones in the water . Seriously, if you drink only bottled water, a RO system will have no problem paying for itself in less than a year. Just do the math.

What is your definition of cheap? Not knocking, just asking.

We're spending around 8.00 a month on bottled water right now. (for the house, more for just me traveling.) Most of the time it's just one person there.

I'm not knocking RO, but the prices I was quoted were around 1,000 installed. That's around 900 a year more than we spend on bottled water in my house.

Has the technology changed in the last 15 years? I remember it specifically not getting rid of all hormones and medicine in water. Not to mention the cost of running the filter.

Brad

The system in the link I posted from ebay is $137. 1k? Would that be for a whole home system not just a tap? When I worked in a pet store we had one that could do a few hundred gallons a hour but that's not necessary unless your planning on selling it.

Edit: Forgot to share about when I got a call trying to schedule a "Free Water Evaluation" so they could try to sell me a home filtration system. I said "Sure this will be fun, I used to clean pools, I know all about water chemistry" and it worked, they never showed up for that "free evaluation" for some reason. Don't trust salespeople.

[This message has been edited by jmbishop (edited 09-04-2014).]

My wife buys bottled "spring" water. It annoys the heck out of me. The only time I buy water in a plastic bottle is when I need distilled for battery refills, snake egg incubators and our carnivorous plants and such. I could distill it myself, but I imagine the cost to heat the water and boil it all off along with making a cooling coil would be more expensive than the jug for a buck.

quote Originally posted by Fats: Well, around here the ground water is likely heavily contaminated. The local chicken plant, and farms are just dumping their waste on the ground, and this includes some heavy doses of growth hormones. Not only do the locals not eat the chicken from these plants if they can help it, they don't drink the water. Even good filters don't remove hormones and pesticides from the water. Reverse osmosis is expensive, and only sorta works. Brad

Where are the growth hormones coming from?

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Where are the growth hormones coming from?

I suppose I just meant hormones. :\ But from cattle farms, and some would say the chicken plant itself. I know hormones in chickens are supposed to be illegal, but the chickens are genetically bred to grow extremely fast. This causes a huge jump in hormones, and all extra hormones are flushed from the body just like anything else, the litter is scooped up and sprayed on the fields by the farms. This works the same way that hormones go from the toilet to the sewer to the drinking water.

There was a chapter on it when I was doing the Environmental Engineering thing, but I cant remember the exacts on it, and the science has changed since then. :\ It's almost been 20 years... Student loans are about paid off though.

Here's what I googled to try and explain it.
http://www.separationsnow.c...lids.html?&tzcheck=1

quote Dirty manure A number of synthetic and natural hormones, many of which are endocrine disrupting compounds, can be measured in chicken litter and manure and in biosolids from wastewater treatment plants by GC/MS, to assess the risk if they are used as fertilisers. Farm manure is often recycled onto the land in order to improve and fertilise the soil. However, this is not without its risks because the litter can be contaminated with natural hormones like estrone, estradiol, estriol and testosterone which act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals and can harm native fauna and get into the food chain. These same steroids are also present in poultry excreta and litter as their conjugated forms that do not act as EDCs but are converted by soil bacteria into the parent compounds too. Similar risks are associated with the biosolids resulting from wastewater treatment which are also used to improve soil. Except that in this case, synthetic hormones used for contraception or in hormone replacement therapy can be found in addition to the natural hormones, thereby increasing the potential exposure. Despite the fact that livestock are regarded as the second greatest polluters of the environment with hormones, little work has been done to estimate the levels present in manure or biosolids. Any procedures must take into account the complex nature of the solid matrices which can produce interferences, while providing low detection limits. One method has been proposed by scientists in Spain, where 84% of poultry litter, consisting of excreta mixed with bedding material, is recycled onto the land. José Tadeo and coresearchers from the National Institute for Agriculture and Food Research and Technology (INIA) selected GC/MS to measure 13 natural and synthetic hormones, linked to a specially developed extraction procedure based on the QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) principles. Isotope dilution Poultry manure and litter were collected from various farms in different Spanish regions and sewage sludge pellets were acquired from wastewater treatment plants in Madrid and Catalonia. The main solvent employed conventionally in QuEChERS techniques is acetonitrile but that alone was insufficient to produce clean extracts for analysis. First of all, the samples were mixed with measured amounts of a number of stable isotope-labelled internal standards to allow isotope dilution GC/MS to be carried out. Then water and acetonitrile were added, before magnesium sulphate and sodium acetate which helped remove interfering peaks from the subsequent chromatograms. Following ultrasonication, the extracts was separated and subjected to dispersion solid-phase extraction. A secondary amine-bonded silica gel absorbent was added to remove polar organic acids, along with C18 absorbent to eliminate some sugars and lipids. Magnesium sulphate was also added to absorb water, which would interfere with the derivatisation reaction that followed. A final clean up on a polymeric SPE absorbent was followed by reaction with a trimethylsilylating agent to convert the alcohol and ketone groups of the hormones so that they are amenable to gas chromatography. The extracts were injected into the multimode inlet of the gas chromatograph which was held initially in solvent-vent mode until the sample was fully loaded. Thereafter, it was operated in splitless mode to transfer the liquid to the head of the column which was coated with a 5%-phenylarylene-95% dimethylpolysiloxane coating to separate the hormones. The eluting compounds were subjected to electron ionisation and measured using multiple reaction monitoring, the contents being calculated from the peak areas relative to those of the standards. Monitoring hormones in manure and biosolids These conditions led to good, clear multiple reaction monitoring chromatograms for the 13 steroid hormones. The detection limits in the three matrices after spiking were lowest in the sewage sludge but very similar overall at 0.5-2.1, 1.0-3.0 and 1.0-2.9 ng/g for sludge, manure and litter, respectively. The recoveries for the intricate extraction procedure were 76-124%. When the samples from farms and treatment plants were analysed using the optimised procedure, seven of the hormones were detected. Biosolids were contaminated with trans-androsterone, a metabolite of the human steroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) to relatively high levels, up to 3.1 µg/g. The most abundant hormones found in manure were estrone and 17β-estradiol at up to 0.29 and 0.11 µg/g, respectively, whereas estrone and 4-androstene-3,17-dione (ANDT) were dominant in the litter. Not all of these are hormones that are excreted from poultry. For instance, ANDT can be produced by the action of E. coli bacteria on cholesterol, sitosterol and sigmasterol. In addition, published reports on steroids that were measured in stored manure indicate that estrone is formed from 17α-estradiol by microorganisms present. Regardless of their origins, the steroids can be measured in poultry manure and wastewater treatment plant biosolids using the new method that combines QuEChERS extraction with GC/MS analysis. It could be deployed to check the safety of these materials before they are spread on the land, to avoid the release of unacceptable quantities of steroid hormones into the environment.

Brad

Here in Canada, it is the law to have the source of the water printed on the bottle. No guessing.

PS: I don't buy bottled water.... It has been proven that city water is just as good if not better than most bottled water.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca...50277168?chap=1#s2c1

Melanie bought some of that bottled water from China mart one time and I looked at the bottle, she saves the bottles and has never bought another, after I pointed out something on the labels. I would take a picture but know it would never come out, the print is so small you need a dam magnifying glass to read it. Anyway she saved the empty bottles and I have one in front of me.

ingredients, purified water, magnesium sulfate, potassium bicarbonate, potassium chloride.

Bottled by: Ice River Springs USA inc. Morganton, NC.

Source: Pittsfield, MA Municipal water

Processed by: Advanced filtration, ozonation and reverse osmosis technologies

First lets read the second thing I made red, Why would a company in NC. ship water from the state of Massachusetts to NC. and bottle that?
second why are they using the water from a municipal water supply in a state a thousand miles from where they bottle it?
Lastly, why all the dammed additives, if it was purified?

that's the Wal Mart Great Value brand purified water, after I showed that to Melanie she poured every bottle down the sink and rinsed them out with our well water and refilled it with our well water !

Read the labels and not just the nutritional facts part, every thing on the labels of all the bottled water you buy ! Bottled water is sometimes less safe !

Steve

[This message has been edited by 84fiero123 (edited 09-05-2014).]

quote I suppose I just meant hormones. :\ But from cattle farms, and some would say the chicken plant itself. I know hormones in chickens are supposed to be illegal, but the chickens are genetically bred to grow extremely fast. This causes a huge jump in hormones, and all extra hormones are flushed from the body just like anything else, the litter is scooped up and sprayed on the fields by the farms. This works the same way that hormones go from the toilet to the sewer to the drinking water.

If we would just eradicate humans, the drinking water would be safe from those horrible estrogens, progesterones, and testosterones.
"supposed" to be?

I tend to question so-called tech articles that are rife with words such as "may--can be--could be--might etc", as well as one that mixes studies in one country in with questions about drinking water in a country an ocean away.
The predominant hormone found in the SPANISH chicken litter was Androstenedione-On April 11, 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned ALL sale and use of androstenedione.

One thought... you could distill your own water.

Otherwise, yes, there should be labeling on water to say where it comes from.

A RO system would only need to be at the location where you get your drinking/cooking water from. They make units that mount under the sink. http://www.homedepot.com/b/...Systems/N-5yc1vZaqv5

I have a well, with good water, but still use a whole house filter. There IS, a water main that runs in front of my property from a little co-op that supplies water to residents in the area, but the tie in was several thousand $$, plus a monthly fee plus a usage fee based on a meter. It wouldn't take me long using that, to exceed what the cost of drilling my well cost. On top of that, the church I attend uses that co-op water, and that water has a strong sulpur smell to it.

I rarely drink plain water tho--I know what fish do in it...

quote Originally posted by maryjane: I rarely drink plain water tho--I know what fish do in it...

Everything?

[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 09-05-2014).]

quote Originally posted by maryjane: I rarely drink plain water tho--I know what fish do in it...

If you drink anything with water in it.... it is still water which fish do things in

(unless you drink distilled water products).

Here, my water comes from Lake Superior.

My idiot daughter in law used to live on an abandoned chicken farm. Granted their well water was awful, but good city water wasn't that far away. Instead of filling containers with city water she was buying bottled water even for their dogs. They are struggling to keep their heads above water and she can't figure out how she is throwing her money away like this even when it is pointed out to her.

Somewhere in my barn, I have some canned water--about 1 qt size cans . It has a milspec # on it, in a plain grey can and "drinking water" printed on it in black letters. I suspect it came from a USN lifeboat, but I have no idea how old it is--something my father picked up somewhere in one of his auction trips--funny thing is, when I shake it, it feels like a solid moving around inside instead of a liquid..
Looks just like these, but in bigger cans:

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 09-05-2014).]

quote Originally posted by jmbishop: RO is cheap and with pre- and post-activated carbon filters it does filter out growth hormones as well as other hormones in the water . Seriously, if you drink only bottled water, a RO system will have no problem paying for itself in less than a year. Just do the math.

A reverse osmosis system is only as good as the pre filtration to it. Without pre filtration on heavy iron water it won't last a few months. This is what I do for a living and have seen all the Lowe's and Home Depot's RO systems fail. Reverse osmosis is the best quality water that is economical to produce and for those people that like high PH (Kangen Water) water just add a calcite filter to the end just before the post carbon filter.

Earl

quote Originally posted by aqua-man: A reverse osmosis system is only as good as the pre filtration to it. Without pre filtration on heavy iron water it won't last a few months. This is what I do for a living and have seen all the Lowe's and Home Depot's RO systems fail. Reverse osmosis is the best quality water that is economical to produce and for those people that like high PH (Kangen Water) water just add a calcite filter to the end just before the post carbon filter. Earl

You really need an avatar




You may be the guy to ask this, I have city water in a small town in MN. I dont think the water is that hard since it doesnt leave rust spots, also a cheapie test strip kit showed fairly low. But it does leave "pink slime" around the tub drain to be cleaned. Also we were getting white "flakes" but only from the refrigerator water dispenser even with the filter replaced as scheduled, so we just use it from the kitchen sink tap now. I thought maybe it had something to do with the white plastic lines the fridge uses? Is the pink stuff or white flakes anything I can or should fix? We run no filters or even a softener. The only annoying thing is trying to dry a car fast and complete enough before it air dries white water spots when washing a car with the hose.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: Lastly, why all the dammed additives, if it was purified?

The additives are there for taste.

Here's a link to the local bottling company around here. I always try to buy their water if I can find it. We have a Brita filter on our kitchen faucet for drinking and cooking and I would not drink our well water without it, nasty stuff. I've kicked around the idea of putting in a RO system for the whole house but just haven't pulled the trigger yet. I buy bottled water all the time when traveling, I always need something to drink when I'm driving and water is a helluva lot better than pop and other sweet stuff.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: If we would just eradicate humans, the drinking water would be safe from those horrible estrogens, progesterones, and testosterones. "supposed" to be? I tend to question so-called tech articles that are rife with words such as "may--can be--could be--might etc", as well as one that mixes studies in one country in with questions about drinking water in a country an ocean away. The predominant hormone found in the SPANISH chicken litter was Androstenedione-On April 11, 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned ALL sale and use of androstenedione.

I got what you are saying, but I couldn't find a study done in the US.

I say "supposed to be illegal" because Chicken companies have already went around the law on many other things, they've injected eggs with antibiotics, places drugs in water, then proclaimed that they "don't feed or inject chickens antibiotics." Etc. Etc.

They say that injecting eggs with whatever isn't illegal because it's not a chicken yet... Who's to say what they do. I hear all the time from people working in hatcheries that say they are injecting eggs. Do I know what they are injecting? No I don't. Do you? No you don't. The only people that really know are the chicken plants, the ones that grow a full sized chicken in 4 weeks or so....

Brad

quote Originally posted by 2.5: You may be the guy to ask this, I have city water in a small town in MN. I dont think the water is that hard since it doesnt leave rust spots, also a cheapie test strip kit showed fairly low. But it does leave "pink slime" around the tub drain to be cleaned. Also we were getting white "flakes" but only from the refrigerator water dispenser even with the filter replaced as scheduled, so we just use it from the kitchen sink tap now. I thought maybe it had something to do with the white plastic lines the fridge uses? Is the pink stuff or white flakes anything I can or should fix? We run no filters or even a softener. The only annoying thing is trying to dry a car fast and complete enough before it air dries white water spots when washing a car with the hose.

The rust spots would be iron in your water, I believe. Not sure what the "pink slime" is, but I'd bet the farm that your white flakes are lime deposits.

[This message has been edited by litespd (edited 09-07-2014).]

Unless your in the backwoods somewhere, I dont know why people dont just use their city tapwater. I think bottled water is a joke personally. People that gripe at $4.00 gasoline are happy paying more than that for what is normally 'free' (or nearly) water. I liked the guys who were buying new plastic bottles, putting their labels on them and filling them in the garage with a garden hose...lol. Got rich quick.

I live in central Arizona, and most of the year it is potentially unsafe to travel without water. Also, my work requires me to be outside a lot. Bottled water is a convenience.

quote Originally posted by fogglethorpe: Bottled water is a convenience.

What did the cowboys/cavalry/soldiers do circa 1860 - 1900 ?

Ok, I'll bite. What did they do?

Canteens.
Civil war canteen ...



Modern day military canteen ...



Which gave birth I think to the word cantina (a bar or saloon).

Empty bottles, if used today in military ops would leave evidence, a lot of evidence telling many things.

Water keeps for a long time. I don't think I have ever tasted stale water. I also work outside, on 12 hour shifts. In the Texas heat. We use a five gallon water can (iced down). Sometimes I am working 100 feet above other workers, for hours. Every bottle of water would be a danger if they fell. I use one of these one gallon water "canteens" (secured to a handrail) ...

Ok, Cliff. If I am able to find a stream in this desert, I'll make sure to fill my freakin' canteen. Thanks for the tip.

quote Originally posted by fogglethorpe: If I am able to find a stream in this desert, I'll make sure to fill my freakin' canteen.

I wouldn't waste my time looking. They make five and ten gallon water cans. Much easier to pack and carry than ten gallons of water bottles.



My company provides bottled water. I don't use it.