Persuasive Tap Water

We're always hearing about drinking our seven to eight glasses a day or half of our body weight in ounces, but they never tell us which water to drink. These companies persuade us to buy their water because they want us to believe their water is the best thing since sliced bread and tap water is not good. That argument is completely biased because the purity of tap water is different almost everywhere you go. The benefits of water definitely does outweigh the cost due to money, health and environmental problems.

To start, bottled water has a wide range of money issues. We are paying a tremendous amount of money for something we call a natural resource. "As much of 40% of bottled water actually comes from tap, which means bottled water consumers

are paying hundreds or thousands of times more for an illusion of purity" (Ink,2). If we think deeper or more critically about the situation, we are really paying more for the bottle and not so much for the water. We are paying thousands for the plastic to make the bottle and not so much for the water, which is why they have us recycle the plastic. It is definitely cheaper to drink tap water than bottled water. "Tap water cost about $0.02 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charged for bottled water" (Ink,2). According to Lake, "on average, Americans purchase approximately 42.6 billion individual 1-liter bottles of water each year. Globally, people roughly go through roughly 200 billion plastic bottles annually". Therefore, consumers are paying way more than a little by

purchasing bottled water, all because we are taught to believe that bottled water is purer and safer than tap water.

Due to that particular myth, the bottled water industry is worth billions of dollars, but causing outrageous water droughts around the world. Lake states, "As of 2013 , bottled water sales worldwide topped $117 billion, with experts predicting annual revenues to increase to $195 billion by 2018". Money is being wasted on bottled water. It is the same thing as tap water and we are paying entirely too much for it. We are paying for something that is destroying the world we have to live in, better yet, a world where our children have to live in as well. The money that is being spent on bottled water could be used for fresh tap water in our homes. The money that’s been given to these companies are actually going toward making their

plastic.

These days bottled waters are being sold in school. Growing up through middle school and realizing through high school and college that there has been a drastic change. Before high school it was rare to see anyone in school carrying around a bottle of water or seeing as many vending machines that carry bottled waters. Going through high school and college there were more vending machines filled with these tall bottles of Dasani waters and a majority of the students in each class had a bottle on his or her desk. Sitting in a classroom, there were about 8 out of 25 students who had a Dasani water. These students are not thinking about the risk factors of the product. Bottled water is already harmful enough to the Earth. Students will either throw the bottles out on the ground or they will be tossed in the trashcan. Lots of students just carry around personal water bottles like Yeti's or Orca's. That could help the world become healthier and cleaner, but we could carry on for the rest of the paper why schools should not be selling bottled waters to their students. Then again, there are some good effects that come out of it as well because it refrains students from purchasing sodas and going the healthier route. This causes

students to cut off at least 200 calories a week. It is very convenient because you can carry it around as well. Therefore, there are some positives to it, but the negative outweighs the positive more than we think.

Secondly, there are health issues that come with bottled water.

"The federal Environment Protection Agency requires that water systems serving more than one million residents test 300 water samples per month, while utilities serving 3 million people or more must collect and test 480 samples monthly, for more than once a week for bottled water" (Social Ink). Meaning, bottled water is so risky that it has to be tested twice as more than tap water. Also, no one thinks about what these companies use to make these bottles that they put this "purified" water in. We really only pay attention to the convenience of it. According to Mercola, "About 40 percent of bottled water is nothing more than tap water! So not only might you still be drinking all the chemicals you were trying to avoid in the first place, you might be exposing yourself to even MORE chemicals by drinking from plastic bottles". Basically, while people are trying to avoid the chemicals in tap water, they are actually making matters worse and taking in more toxic chemicals. People do not realize these hazards. The easier route is drinking tap because no matter what we purchase in stores we honestly do not know what these companies use to produce these products. "Though drinking water directly from a store shelf poses serious health risks, leaving this bottled water in your car or strapped to your bike and exposed to the hot sun will cause even more serious chemical exposure (Mercola,5) therefore, if leaving the bottled

water outside in the sun can cause chemical exposure, then it can also happen in your home as well just by sitting on your kitchen counter depending on your home's temperature. Bottled water is extremely dangerous and has effects on children as well. "Studies found that boys whose mothers had high phthalate more likely to have certain demasculinized traits and produce less testosterone"