BSU tap water: the smart choice
 
Americans spend thousands of dollars every day for water in plastic bottles. Yet the drinking water that flows through their taps costs just pennies per gallon.
If you opt for bottled water based on convenience or taste, that’s a choice that costs you, but if you choose bottled water for health or safety reasons, save your money. Bottled water is no cleaner, safer or healthier than tap water.
 
BSU is proud of the tap water it delivers throughout Bonita Springs and encourages you to tap your tap. Here’s why: Tap water saves you money. On a per-ounce basis, bottled water can cost twice as much as gasoline and as much as 1,000 times more than tap water.
 
Drinking tap water is kind to the environment. Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. While many people recycle conscientiously, studies show that more than 80 percent of plastic beverage bottles are simply thrown away.

Making bottles and transporting bottled water uses oil – lots of oil. According to the nonprofit consumer-rights organization Food and Water Watch, making plastic water bottles uses more than 17 million barrels of oil each year, equivalent to the amount needed to fuel 1 million vehicles on U.S. roads annually. Trucking cases of filled bottles to the grocery store consumes more energy, pollutes the environment and contributes to global warming.

The source of bottled water is sometimes a mystery. Terms such as “glacier” or “mountain” water are not regulated standards of identity and don’t necessarily mean that the water source is pristine. In fact, as much as 40 percent of bottled water is bottled tap water. If the bottled water you’re drinking is actually tap water, you may not be able to determine the original water source, which may be a lake, river or stream.
 
BSU’s water sources are underground aquifers, contained by thick layers of porous limestone and clay.

Bottled water is no healthier than tap water. The United States Environmental Protection Agency sets and enforces standards for drinking water. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sets standards for bottled water based on EPA standards, but they apply only to bottled water transported between states. Our tap water is continuously tested and monitored, and consistently exceeds both state and federal standards.

The Beverage Marketing Corporation reported that 2008 bottled water consumption in the U.S. totaled 8.6 million gallons, down by 1 percent from 2007. We hope that more people are getting the message that tap water is fresher, cheaper, as good for you and better for the environment than bottled water.