According to a recent study, Americans spent $15 billion dollars on bottled water in 2006. Transporting that much water requires moving 1 billion bottles of water a day. You could run 100,000 cars for a year on that amount of oil required to mae the plastic used for bottled water. What's worse, is that 9 out of 10 plastic water bottles are simply thrown away ending up in our landfills and waterways.

A four-year study of bottled water in the U.S. conducted by NRDC found that one-fifth of the 103 water products tested contained synthetic organic chemicals such as the neurotoxin xylene and the possible carcinogen and neurotoxin styrene.

IS BOTTLED WATER REALLY BETTER FOR YOU?

We drink bottled water because we think its healthier, but that really isn't the case. 24% of bottled water is simply purified tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi. They called this product Aquafina and it costs 2,500 times more than normal tap water. Products like Evian and FIJI are even worse, they cost 10,000 times more than normal tap water. Let's think about it like this. The USDA recommends we drink 8 to 12 cups of water a day. That equates to $2,500 a year if you only drink Aquafina and $10,000 a year if you only drink FIJI. The yearly cost for tap water? $1 dollar...

What's worse is the federal standards are actually higher on tap water than they are on bottled water. So if there was ever a no brainer its this... buy a reusable water container, for example Nalgene, and drink tap water. If you want it purified they buy a $30 purifier for your tap or $15 dollar Brita purifier for your refrigerator. You'll save a lot of money and help the environment a great deal.

THE FACTS

The USDA recommends we drink 8 to 12 cups of water a day. That equates to $2,500 a year if you only drink Aquafina and $10,000 a year if you only drink FIJI. The yearly cost for tap water? $1 dollar...