No, I never have drank (drunk?) much bottled water at all. Not because of worry about the safety of the water, but the safety of our planet--those plastic bottles mostly don't find their way to recycling.

I switched from plastic to stainless steel quite a while back. I am surprised at how many in my water aerobics class bring their water in plastic bottles and set them in the sun during class.

I buy a case of water, but re-use the bottles a couple times.
Strictly for convenience, where it's not handy for my stainless jug.

I do have a quart size stainless steel that I use almost always all the time.

Funny thing, I have a ceramic filter on my kitchen tap that all our water is drawn from. The ceramic removes chlorine and impurities.
A friend of mine is a naturopath and she did a class study, where she had people track their diets and drinks for 2 weeks and a lot of health questions were asked.
She's concerned over the amount of water that I drink and the amount of times that I pee. I'm meeting her tomorrow for a go-over on the case study, and she wants to test the water that I'm drinking.
I'm sure curious over what she has to say. I'll let you know.

I buy cases of water because our tap water tastes and smells of minerals and chlorine. We don't even use it to make coffee. We tried Brita filters and a faucet filter, but it still tasted off, so we stick with bottled. But we recycle every single bottle, as well as the gallon containers I buy, plus pet food cans and glass containers.

Water from a tap - more thoroughly tested.

And I'm told that I should drink 8 glasses a day, at least, a guide more honoured in the breach than the observance ...

... and they say that coffee doesn't count.

Meantime ... I'm to take a (little) diuretic pill daily, to counteract edema in legs, where I have varicose veins, and must wear squeezy socks, washing them nightly.

Plus eat bananas and oranges (will juice suffice?) to keep my potassium up.

I'll have to ask the doc about the 8 glasses of water daily.

ole joyful

Tap water here, too. It's tested and is generally cleaner than bottled water. Plus, I have no interest in adding plastic to landfills.

Good for you, Petra. I know that recycling is a lot of work.

I have the small 8oz plastic water bottles that my spa gives out after a masssage.
I refill them many times from the tap and put them in the freezer...grab a bottle from the freezer, "prime it with a little more eater from the tap, and I have instant ice water.

I never put the empties in the dishwasher, just rinse them out before refilling. Been doing this for 2-3 years, with no ill effects.

I do because I don't like the taste of our city water. Don't worry much about things like plastic other than I don't reuse the bottles and won't drink bottled water that's been out in the heat or in a car. I only store food in plastics approved for food. I don't reuse margarine tubs and stuff like that.

I drank out of garden hoses as a kid and I'm still here. A bit too old to worry about the latest chemical scare. Living in California we have some pretty weird and insane regulations that drive me nuts. All the China and glassware displays have to have little warning signs out about how using the dishes and glassware may be dangerous to your health. Insane.

Socks, they sure don't make it easy around here. We don't have recycles pickup because we live outside city limits, so everything has to be taken to the recycle center in town. Most of the neighbors don't want to be bothered, so they don't recycle anything. It's too bad, lots of stuff going to the landfill needlessly.

I don't like bottled water because of the plastic taste. I have not read of any reports on the plastic's chemical content. But I did see an interesting show on PBS on water in general, where the scientist host called bottled water "dead water." Good point as they filter out all the good minerals too.

Bottled water is VERY expensive per ounce.

I never drink bottled water. I have my insulated bottle with a strap or my aluminum one which I fill up at the gym.

We only buy bottled water when we travel. I hate the taste of it, though, it's so flat and usually tastes of plastic. Better than chlorine, though.

I have several large squeeze type bottles that I keep water in, I get them from WalMart and they have those little tops that pull up and down to seal. I have one with me at all times and they generally last for a couple of years, they cost about $2. I rinse them out and refill them every day and have been using them for about the last 10 years. They hold about a quart of water and are not made out of the stuff that they're warning against. We have sweet well water and all other water pales by comparison. I'm so glad it's good, because I drink a lot of water. We get a lot of comments on our wonderful water.

We live out in the country and don't have trash pick up, we have to take our trash to the county compactor. We have been recycling everything we use that can be recycled, for over 20 years now. It takes only minutes a week and it's no big deal, if you stayed organized about it.

Tap water or we have sparkling spring water right out of the ground, right here! Every two weeks we go fill out BIG jugs and keep it chilled.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mineral springs article

I don't buy bottled water to keep on hand, usually only at outdoor events (if not too expensive); but I started to fill up a used 1 liter plastic Coke bottle, from my tap, and carrying that around with me at home and while gardening.

Well, after doing this for a couple of weeks I noticed that my tongue and mouth were getting sore. Then I developed thrush-like symptoms. What in the world? Suddenly I realized that whenever I drank from the used Coke bottle (using it for a couple weeks straight) things didn't taste quite right and my mouth was getting worse. I have well water. The plastic was getting a little "orangey" like all my drinking glasses do eventually form the hard water.

Needless to say I don't re-use the bottles now. Could have been a coincidence, thrush from some other source; but it scared me enough not to do it again.

I have never bought bottled water for everyday use. Only on occasion when traveling or when out shopping and forgot to bring water from home. I don't like most city water. where I'm from we have wonderful well water. I don't understand why anyone in my area would buy water when it is free and taste much better than bottled.

I still have some plastic water bottles around, for guests who are not accustomed to the taste of our water, but I no longer use them regularly like I once did.
I do use refillable water bottle, some plastic and one metal. Our tap water has a slight taste and it is much less noticable cold.

No I don't...but what about pop...or soda(as some of you call it) and ketchup,mayo,mustard,salad dressing.....the list goes on and on. Nearly everything is packaged in plastic these day...

Back in the day of glass...they worried about chips of glass being in food.

There is always going to be things like that to worry about...enough to drive a person crazy..

We do buy bottled water and keep it in the work shop for people who come to work on our place. It gets really hot and is a necessity. We have bottles that we use for our personal use although I admit to grabbing a bottle from time to time when I am outside working.

We are big in recycling and have a 7 day a week drop off center in town...several of my neighbors are as well.

Yep, still buying and drinking (plastic) bottled water!
We live outside the city limits and have a well. The
water tastes and smells terrible!! You couldn't pay me
to drink it! We finally added a whole house water
softener so at least the water is usable for laundry.

We've always had wonderful, clean, fresh-tasting water -- tap water from Lake Michigan, processed by our own (2) suburbs' water works.

I never even enter the grocery aisle that contains all those plastic bottles of *water*, soda pop, *tea*, 'energy' drinks -- and all the salty snacks!

(We recycle, and I refuse to buy over-packaged items. The bucket is full enough as it is.)

We have great water in the tap here so i've never bought water except once or twice when on a trip...

I use tap water in my Brita jug - change the filter monthly.

Another study was done in Canada on bottled water and there are exceptionally high levels of bacteria, much more than in tap water. The bacteria is not life threatening though but they were recommending people with compromised systems and pregnant women might want to avoid it.

Also some of the bottled water is bottled from tap water. When I found out one of the bottled waters used Lake Ontario water I didn't drink it again. LOL

Windsor has really good tap water and only on the odd day early in the morning can I smell chlorine.

I also prefer my coffee made with filtered Brita water and my tea water right from the tap.

I can understand using bottled water though where the water quality is not good.

Anne

I'm a bit of an ecclectic.
I use them all...store-bought water in plastic, glass, and aluminum. I drink tap water, too...it is usually put in some kind of thermal container, or in a glass when I'm home.

Wildchild, you brought back memories. I think Garden Hose Water is the best!

I grew up in central Illinois with artesian well water serving our area. It was really good, and I do miss it.

I bring 2 full BPA free Nalgene bottles with me to work every day. I fill them from my filtered water on the fridge or on the Pur faucet on our slop sink. I never buy bottled water.

Like Petra, we recycle everything, but we drive it to the recycling center ourselves, as we don't have recycle pick up out here.

Tap water at home, bottled water at camp because we're not sure the water from the well out there is considered 'drinkable'. One of these days we'll have it tested. Even so, it's iron water so I'm not sure we'd want to drink it.

I read the information about the chemicals from the plastic bottles and it did give me second thoughts, but I'm still using the bottled water. I buy my milk in plastic bottles as well.