Ben has been talking about reducing the household use of water for a more personal use, but I’d like to go into it from a health standpoint.    Everyone needs water to survive.   We drink it every day as a beverage and also in the food we eat.  We need to because it supports our body.  Up to 70% of our bodies are made up of water, and this water is required for us to live.  Water does everything from removing toxins from the body, cures common ailments and suppress’ our appetite. 

Now how do we get water?  Most of us take it straight from the tap, which is the most economical way to get water.  However, too many of us buy bottled water and maybe not enough of us remember a particular bottled water company that fills from the tap anyway.  There are a couple of negative aspects of buying bottled water.  One, which is a green-blogger’s nightmare, is the horrific statistics that I pulled from online stating that in 2005 “approximately 30 billion plastic water bottles were purchased, with only about 12% recycled.”  That is a staggering number!  You can view a video representation of this statistic here.

Another negative from buying water in a bottle is these pestering claims that BPA contaminate the water we drink.  BPA which stands for Bisphenol A, is a compound that is used to produce plastic products.  Wikipedia states that, “Bisphenol A is used primarily to make plastics, and…have been in commerce for more than 50 years” and has some potentially harmful health effects.  Bisphenol A “is an endocrine disruptor, which can mimic the body’s own hormones and may lead to negative health effects.”  To put it simply, this may affect infants and fetuses while their brains are developing, may create an earlier state for puberty for females and may also increase the risk of breast cancer in women.  This is startling; BPA, “may be an underlying cause of the increased incidence of breast cancer observed over the last 50 years.”

Okay, this isn’t the end of the world.  We have options.  Ever since I started hearing about this plastic additive I started making a few changes in my life.  A couple of years we purchased a Brita Pitcher, and I must say was probably our best purchase.   It filters out 98% of lead and reduces the amount of Chlorine and several other elements in your water.  It just tastes so much fresher.  It also reduces the amount of plastic water bottles that are used each day. 

Another product that I purchased, and see advertised all over now are these aluminum water bottles.  These are just as convenient as plastic water bottles except you don’t have to worry about any waste you create by using it.  It is a reusable bottle that you simply fill up at home.   Plus there are so many designs now that you can better reflect your personality by use of your water bottle.

So maybe this blog won’t help reduce your consumption of water, hopefully not anyways, but at least you can make smarter decisions when it comes to drinking water.  Most, if not all of this information is not new to anyone, but I think statistics help make more apparent that there is a problem in our usage rates.  If you have any additional ideas or comments to help promote healthy water consumption, please post in the comments section below.