What researchers found when they tested Fiji Water against tap water | Hacker News Reader

What researchers found when they tested Fiji Water against tap water

upworthy.com

Generally, tap water in the US doesn't have a pleasant taste, often accompanied by a strong chlorine odor. It's therefore understandable why many people opt for bottled water. Improving filtration or treatment methods seems like the best solution to cut down on the number of bottles.

This is community/water district specific and so is not so easily generalized. I've lived in Kansas City and Denver and neither have this issue. But in my brother's city yes it's an issue.

> Generally, tap water in the US doesn't have a pleasant taste, often accompanied by a strong chlorine odor.

You can filter at the tap cheaply and efficiently and with better purity assurances.

It is incredibly location and house dependent. My childhood friends' houses were a mixed bag of good and bad. Every house I've lived in has had acceptable tap water. The houses I've stayed in on coastal vacations have had bad tap water, and my college dorm had awful tap water.

I'm glad all of the houses I've lived in have had good tap.

Or people could just invest one month of water bottle purchases into a water filter and water bottle.

"Bottled water manufacturers are not required to disclose as much information as municipal water utilities because of gaps in federal oversight authority. Bottom line: The Food and Drug Administration oversees bottled water, and U.S. EPA is in charge of tap water. FDA lacks the regulatory authority of EPA."

How many people in the USA have ever been where they didn't have access to clean, filtered, potable water out of a tap?

Closest I've ever been was on a camping trip; and there was an "improved" spring that would've served there, at need.

I think there were a few citizens of Flint Michigan. And it’s not like issues haven’t happened before other places.

Lots of issues around getting safe water after hurricanes and floods and other natural disasters.

And every once in a while everywhere I’ve ever lived gets a boil order just from a maintenance issue when they’re working on a broken water main or something.

In country of 300 million, its meaningless to hold up an anecdotes that affected a combined 0.1% of those people.

The EPA estimates lead pipes serviced 9.2 million homes with water in 2021. That's closer to 10% of the country.

https://www.edf.org/health/lead-pipes-threat-kids-across-ame....

Lead pipes develop a mineral lining that prevents lead from getting in the water. It's when that lining cracks, dissolves, or breaks that it can lead to lead in the water.

So while 10% have lead pipes, it does not mean 10% have lead in their water. It means 10% face a small risk of potentially getting lead in their water. So it is still worth addressing.

100% true, it doesn't mean 10% have lead in their pipes. The question is much better phrased, are your lead pipes safe or not, and for how long? So if you're in that 10%, that seems like a pretty reasonable precaution to seek out alternative sources of drinking water.

There are many places in the US where the groundwater is contaminated by industrial pollutants, even if it is within the safety limits that have been set. I assume many people think bottled water is safer.

Folks in Flint, Michigan might have some stories for you. [1] There are a number of other areas with water supply problems as well. [2] I'd expect this is going to get worse if droughts continue in the western United States.

[1] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-y... [2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-ongoing-water-crises-happening...

You've NEVER been away from clean, filtered, potable water from a tap?

You should really get out more. To answer your question more seriously, many times. Camping is the easy answer, there's rarely a tap or spring in the southwest US.

> There are 750 million people around the world who don't have access to clean water.

What does that have to do with bottled water, again?

In fact, isn't bottled water one of those things we typically send in aid to people with access to clean drinking water?

plastic bottle and their transportation generate a lot of pollution, compared to local mecanisms (purification, desalinisation, etc..)

Eliminating bottled water completely won't provide any water to the people that don't have it. It's an appeal to emotion.

That is a ridiculous title. Since when is water measured in distance/length?

I believe that the title is expecting the reader to infer that the measurement is about plastic waste, not water quantity, which commonly is measured in distance.

They are obviously talking about the bottles and not the contents of them, which you'd know if you'd read the article.

or s/bottled water/water bottles

EDIT: title was changed.

The article discusses the length of the bottles placed end to end. Although I agree the title isn't clear.

What are you talking about? The title "See what researchers found when they tested a bottle of Fiji Water against a glass of tap water" is straightforward, tells you exactly what the article is about, and cites sources appropriately.

I always felt focusing the hate against bottled water was bizarre. Bottled soda is worse for you, and likely hurts the environment much more (since you need the water and the extra ingredients). But people usually single out water; schools will ban bottled water, but not bottled soda. It’s bizarre.

Presumably that's because you can get water through other means, whereas the same can't be said about soda.

If we standardized soda to be delivered and sold as high concentration syrup only to be mixed with water right before use, it would dramatically cut amount of plastic wasted per ml of final mixed product.

This is how soda fountains work

Soda fountains exist, are common, and predate plastic bottles.

Even if they didn’t, I’m not sure the logic here. Drinking soda from a bottle is just as much an unnecessary luxury as drinking water from a bottle, in both situations a person could just drink water from the tap instead. But we’re going to allow people to harm the environment with unnecessary packaging as long as they also include unnecessary sugar (which also harms the environment), but we won’t allow the unnecessary packaging if it doesn’t have the unnecessary sugar?

I'll be really happy when we find an actual used for recycled plastic. As much as I want plastic gone, it's not gonna happen, so we have to do something about waste plastic. Even Lego refuses to use recycled plastic.

Is there any other use cases for recycled plastic that has a viable business model?

The only reason to buy bottled water is so you can re-fill that plastic bottle hundreds of times from your tap.

And we laugh about half of Russia not having indoor plumbing.. half of Europe can drink the water out of the fosset, why can't the US?

Like buying a new car every year, wearing the latest fashions, diamond jewelry, etc. - bottled water is both a way for consumers to signal their social status, and for corporations to cash in on primate social instincts. Really, everybody wins!

/s?

I look at someone in their luxury or oversized cars or incredibly noisy motorcycle like a heavy cigarette smoker, they are a threat for me on a bike but they are also people who need help to cure their addictions

Reply on news.ycombinator.com