IMAGINE living in a land where all those important things in life were free – food, water, petrol, heating. Hang on a minute…water is free (or pretty close) at least for those of you who haven’t jumped on the bottled band-wagon!

Just think would you choose to pay for petrol (which is roughly the same price to us as bottled water) if you could get it for next to nothing? Science is attacking the bottle from all angles and if you listen to no other science, please listen to this – bottled water is bad for your bank balance, your backyard and your body. Ban the bottle!

There is no question that bottled water is an environmental disaster. Making bottled water uses a disgusting 17 million gallons of oil each year (that doesn’t include transport) and takes at least three times more water to process than the actual water in the bottles. That is saying nothing of the waste. About 10 BILLION bottles end up in landfill each year in the UK alone with only about three billion going to recycling.

Your back pocket is pleading with you not to waste your money on bottled water! Bottled water is big money. Someone, somewhere is taking their share of £58 billion each year. Imagine the good that could be done with that amount of money? It would cost about £18 billion to build infrastructure to get clean water to everyone in the entire world.

Ironically water sold in bottles is often found to contain tap water.

If the plight of the environment isn’t enough, bottled water is not healthy. To begin with, it is less tightly regulated than tap water so bacterial coliforms like E. Coli (these little critters are a nice indicator of poo contamination) are more likely to be found in bottled water than in tap water.

Water was first bottled back in the 18th century when spa water was thought to be therapeutic (this was also at the time when we thought babies were complete little people inside a sperm and the woman was just the oven).

There is no evidence that water in bottles is more therapeutic than water from a tap.

In fact, there is a growing call for concern over the effects of chemicals in the plastic of water bottles. At present there is not enough evidence to be certain that chemicals like BPA and phthalates, which are the building blocks of plastic, are harmful. To be on the safe side BPA has been banned from baby bottles in Canada and the EU.

BPA leaches from plastic (not just in water bottles but any plastic) particularly when it is warm. BPA gets itself involved in the processing of estrogen in the body and can disrupt hormones. For this reasons scientists are exploring the effects of BPA on hormone-related cancers like breast and prostate cancer.

We are so lucky in this country. Our tap water is sensational. Why risk your health with a product that costs a fortune, damages the environment and is not as good as the stuff “on tap”.

Be bright: Boycott the bottle.