Can Tap Water Help Your Bottom Line?

The ‘Tappening’ campaign is helping forge a national movement that encourages people to make tap their water of choice, whenever possible. The campaign both launched in November 2007 and have served to educate the public about the waste of resources and pollution of the Earth caused by the bottled water industry.

Now with the economics of bottled water becoming a more compelling reason than ever to stop buying and drinking it--Tappening has crunched the numbers and would like to share them with the public:

For an individual who regularly drinks bottled water:

  • Eight glasses of water per day is the recommended intake (10 ounces per serving)
  • A 20-ounce bottle of water on average is $1.50.
  • Four 20-ounce bottles per day = 8 glasses = $6 a day.
  • $6 per day X 365 days = $2,190.

Making allowances for days when an individual may not drink the full recommended amount, for possible discounted prices when buying bottled water in bulk and for the cost of an optional home water filter system (i.e.-Brita or PUR), the folks at Tappening conclude that the average annual estimated savings for an individual who switches from regular bottled water intake to tap water would be approximately $1,400.

For a family of four that regularly drinks bottled water, using the figures and allowances above, the average estimated savings would be $5,600 per year

The American Council of Science and Health (ACSH) just posted today their “Top 10 Unfounded Health Scares of 2008.” One of these unfounded scares is: “Pharmaceuticals can be found in our drinking water.” ACSH’s bottom-line conclusion is: “No negative health effects have ever been observed as the result of trace levels of pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies. New technology allows us to find minute levels of scary-sounding chemicals in many substances we come in contact with every day, but such small amounts do not pose a health risk. Remember, the dose makes the poison!”

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