Bottled water is deeply environmentally damaging [search] and purchasing bottled water faces a backlash [ark] from an increasingly ecologically literate public. Water bottles number in the billions -- using petroleum in their construction, and taking up landfill space. Water needs to come from somewhere, and too often tap water is merely bottled and then driven long distances. We need to be concerned with maintaining our regional watersheds -- making sure our own tap water is safe and clean [search] -- rather than thinking we can continue to exploit mythologically pure bottled water from exotic locales. After drinking bottled water for years, an acquired taste we thought healthful, my family and I have happily converted back to using tap water. We tested the water prior to doing so and it was fine in all regards. It is heartening to see people doing the right thing, as rejecting bottled water becomes an ecologically beneficial and cool idea.

Some interesting facts from AlterNet article [ark]: "Americans drank some 37 billion bottles of water in 2005, despite the inconvenient truth that in most parts of the country, tap water is not only perfectly safe, but also more tightly regulated that its bottled counterpart... manufacturing plastic bottles for bottled water creates an astounding amount of pollution -- an annual equivalent of 1.5 billion barrels of oil... Bottled water 'very clearly reflects the wasteful and reckless consumerism in this country...' "