I knew a girl in college that would only drink bottled water. She had convinced herself there was a taste difference. She wouldn't even drink tap water filtered from a brita filter
I had a roommate like this. So I set up a blind taste test. I set up 10 tests with two glasses each, most of which had one of each type, but I think 3 had either both bottled or both tap. Regardless, it came out int he end, that he couldn't even tell them apart, let alone have a favorite. For some reason, even after the test, he continued to drink bottled water.
> For some reason, even after the test, he continued to drink bottled water.
Most people don't change their minds based on new information (dialectic). You have to appeal to their emotions (rhetoric). This is something Aristotle observed 2500 years ago. It's crucial to understand if you want to understand how people make decisions and how you might be able to change their minds about something.
... I say, doing the exact opposite. It's a difficult habit to break.
Penn & Teller did an episode years ago where they tried to debunk the claim that there was any difference between tap and bottled water. They colluded with a New York City restaurant where the waiters told customers that the restaurant was trying out several new waters and asking customers to taste test each one before deciding which one they should ultimately go with. They made up fake bottle labels such as "Arctic Mist", "Himalayan Snow" and similar (I can't remember the actual names), and in reality Penn and Teller were filling the water bottles from a garden hose in the back of the restaurant with New York City tap water (though admittedly NYC water is very good).
Not only did the customers like the waters, many of them claimed that one was much better than another, expressed a preference, and justified the preference with comments along the lines of "I can really taste the difference in this one, it's more XXX". There was even one customer who refused to believe Penn and Teller when they revealed that all of the bottles contained NYC tap water, and insisted that the waters were different from each other. A true testament to how the mind can fool itself.
The episode in question used to be available on YouTube, but now appears to be paywalled by Paramount+ unfortunately.
I’m sure people can hallucinate differences in taste, but there are very much differences in taste between water sources and water stored in different containers. For instance, many restaurants in nyc serve tap water in glass containers cleaned with bleach and improperly rinsed so you smell the chlorine. The water supply itself can contain chlorine, for instance in many countries chlorine is added to the water supply for various reasons including known mixing of fresh and sewage water. Plastics used in water bottles affect taste and smell. Aquafina and Dasani bottles for instance have a commonly known strong taste of plastic. Plastic bottles left in sunlight for prolonged periods will have an even stronger taste and smell. Cities will change water sources periodically. For instance nyc recently in the last few years adjusted their sources and building managers sent notices saying the new source will taste more “nutritious and earthy”. My building also has had a hot water boiler and cold water mixture issue as well as a contaminant issue that they solved by introducing additional chlorine. However the cold water also is frequently rusty and brown from boiler water mixing in, which probably has its own flavor.
Taste can differ from building to building, city to city, container to container.
Maybe what they actually don't care for is some slight aftertaste from the cleaning products used on the glass?
Also, your nose plays a rather big role in your sense of taste. Using a small mouthed bottle that doesn't tend to waft towards the nose as you drink will have an effect.
Ignoring the taste differences between bottled water and non-bottled water, don't you think water overall can have different taste? Water from different places in the world have different contents, why wouldn't that affect the taste?
And if we can agree that different water can taste different, why couldn't some bottled water taste different than non-bottled water?
Aren't Brita filters gonna have the same problem as the nanoplastics discussed in this article? The article specifically says that the plastic isn't from the bottles themselves.
There's an obvious taste difference between bottled water Vs straight tap water Vs filtered water, ime. That said, you will get used to the different taste after a couple of days and you won't even notice it, so that's not a good reason to buy bottled water.
I find that water flavour has a strong context-sensitive component. For example, I find water tastes really good when I'm really thirsty or after a workout. Any flavour differences between water sources are completely overpowered by this effect for me.
I've also found that drinking water while there is moving water around you makes it taste better. So like, if there is a trickle of water coming out of the sink or a fountain.
> I knew a girl in college that would only drink bottled water. She had convinced herself there was a taste difference. She wouldn't even drink tap water filtered from a brita filter
There almost certainly is a taste difference. The mineral content is likely different, and the plastic from the bottle can have an influence, too.
I can definitely taste a difference between our (Pur-filtered) tap water and the cheap bottled water we get.
When I was a kid, I wouldn't drink Aquafina (or Dasani) because they tasted plasticky. I attributed it to them using the same plastic for Cola bottles, without the overpowering flavors to mask subtle tastes from the plastic. I'm not as picky now, but my taste buds have gotten less sensitive and it's also possible they fixed the issue.
The blind group think and hand waving around this topic always astounds me.
Plastics used in water bottles are not water soluable.
Is there ANY hard evidence of harm to human health from ingesting minute quantities plastic dust vs any other kinds of dust?
Most plastics are chemically and biologically inert. That is why they don't break down in nature.
Where is the evidence that they react in the body to cause harm?
A water bottle is not your vinyl shower curtain. It is made of PET or maybe PE. Neither are biologically active.
Polyamide ( nylon ) in water filters is non toxic. You could probably eat a teaspoon of fine nylon powder a day suspended in water for years with no health effects because it would just pass through the body without reacting, mainly excreted with feces. Your intestines are not going to absorb insoluble plastics into your blood. The quantities found in water bottles are far, far, less than a teaspoon.
Is there any study that purports to find a significant quantity of polyamide or PET or PE in blood???
It really seems there is a media generated mass hysteria around safe plastics. Not all plastics are the same. Plastics used for food or drink application are typically PROVEN safe from decades of study. What are we all worried about then?
Because of the we did not like the taste of our tab water and we were concerned with plastic in the water when buying bottled water, we bought a reverse osmosis filter for home. We added a mineral filter to the system so we get some minerals as well (only to improve the taste).
I still quite a fan of this even when I drink water from plastic bottles when I am on the road.
Cost wise I found it evens out per bottle when compared to buy cheap bottled water from e.g. Aldi. However, it is not necessary to carry water bottles anymore which already is quite an improvement and well worth the money.
> the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis
Ugh, I also have a reverse Osmosis system and this is the first time hearing about this. Anyone here knows is there is research suggesting that these filters may have adverse health effects?
why use a drip coffee make when you could be making some good coffee for about the same price using something like Bialetti Moka Express Espresso Maker?
I assume the same principle of microplastic contamination applies to some degree, not only to bottled water itself, but also to many other food and drink products where a primary ingredient is that kind of commercial plastic-filtered water. For example, most packaged beverages (soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, etc), and certain packaged or jarred food items.
I haven’t been able to find a good distiller. Everything on Amazon looks to be rebrands of the same product which I tried.
It seems once the water is boiling inside it’s vigorous enough to kick particles out with the steam. (And it’s hard to refill without occasionally spilling on the cord which ultimately killed mine)
"metal" is too unspecific. You usually want stainless steel, preferrably CrNiMo steel (V4A, 1.4401 or similar).
Aluminium bottles are always coated with plastic in the factory, which flakes off and usually isn't really better than plastic-bottle-plastic, sometimes even worse (containing PTFE, BPA, ...). As soon as the coating is gone, aluminium will dissolve in the water, and aluminium salts are known to be "not good", in addition to the influence on taste. Same for copper, in addition to the hassle to keep copper clean. Steel bottles are better because proper kitchen-quality stainless steel (the one with Molybdenum in it, in addition to Chromium and Nickel) doesn't leech out into common drinks (including salty hot broth, which would stain CrNi steel) and doesn't need inner coating.
I'd be stronger than that. The soft plastic inside an Aluminum bottle is always worse than a plastic bottle. Even if it's not PTFE or BPA, it's less durable than the hard plastic bottles. And the neurological effects of aluminum are well known.
Given that almost all metal bottles are coated aluminum, the vast majority of "metal water bottle only" parents are doing more harm than good IMO.
Is there anything against glass containers? I'm debating what to use for medium/long term storage (replacing the contents) and indeed I'm wary of metal coatings.
Glass is usually harmless, if you don't use lead or uranium glass. But breakage will lead to harmful shards, which is why many locations such as some schools or party places ban glass bottles.
For storage, use glass bottles. The material of the seal is usually not a problem if there is no contact to the liquid and the seal doesn't crumble. When reusing bottles, make sure to only use fresh or at least good-looking caps. And sterilize things properly (taking into account what the seal is suitable for), because mold and bacteria are far more harmful than common metal or plastic contamination.
Cork is oak, which is carcinogenic (in different amounts in different parts of the plant). Of course for some things one doesn't usually care about that because drinks such as wine are also stored in carcinogenic oak barrels and contain carcinogenic ethanol among other harmful things, so it doesn't really matter.
Also, corks promote microbiological contamination of various kinds, leading to e.g. the common failings in wine (there is actually a multitude of "cork" faults, not just one): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fault
I'd prefer any metal or plastic to cork actually. Just because it is "natural" or "traditional" doesn't make it any good.
Secondly, my building has copper and PVC pipes, which are also suspected of having some adverse health effects.
Thirdly, where I live, sometimes (about once per month) tap water comes out brown. Authorities typically say that it's fine to drink, and I suppose they analyze it and it conforms to some official standard, but I'm not going to drink or give anyone brown water. And that also makes me think that maybe the days it doesn't look brown to me, it might be also somewhat brown, just maybe not brown enough for me to notice.
Maybe I'm wrong and plastic from bottles is much worse than these things, but I don't think you should be so amazed that people can prefer bottled water. At the end of the day, it's a matter of picking your poison... with incomplete information.
Interested to see if the findings are applicable to bottled juices, bottled sodas, pex piping, etc. Also canned goods (beers, foods) where there's a plastic liner in the can.
If some of the contamination is "pre bottling" then the issue may be way more pervasive than just bottled water.
having grown up with in-house water filteration for drinking, from simple uv or charcoal filtering to 14+ stage filteration shebang, it is sad to hear that the source of microplastics might be from the RO process.
i wonder if it is more of an issue for large-scale filteration or even for the ones used at homes. anyways, for our generation and the next microplastics are here to stay (just check the search results here https://hn.algolia.com/?q=microplastics)
> "Previous studies found the major chemical composition to be PET, which is expected since the bottle is made of PET," Yan told us. "Therefore, for a long time, we had the impression that the majority of plastic particles inside bottled water would be Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) particles of a few hundred nanometers in size."
> "That was incorrect," Yan said.
> Ironically enough, the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis … a common water purification method shared by all three brands [of water tested]," the team wrote in the paper.
Too different from the title. And the other comments seem to have been written without reading the text.
Plastic seems like an odd choice to use to drink/eat from and even stranger to filter your water. The Berkey uses a carbon filter and ceramic filters have been used for centuries. I e filtered my water through either for the last 20 years. It has always boggled my mind that people use plastic to drink out of and filter their water.
Can I ask, why do you choose to use plastic rather than ceramic/carbon filter?
It came with the house and I didn't think much of it. We have a well and get significant sand, iron, and a few other things without the filter. I'll probably be upgrade to carbon asap.
They claim its because it's not thorough enough and too expensive. But you can make up whatever reason you want to avoid standardized third party testing.
> the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis … a common water purification method shared by all three brands [of water tested]
Is this inevitable with a polyamide membrane RO system or is this wear and tear with insuficient maintenance/ part replacement?
My town banned single-use plastic water bottles. Now stores sell water in cans, does that water also contain plastic particles?
It sounds like it doesn't matter:
"Ironically enough, the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis … a common water purification method shared by all three brands [of water tested]," the team wrote in the paper."
It bothers me that so many people drink bottled water in places where tap water is drinkable. But from time to time I'm reminded that even in those places sometimes bottled water is unavoidable.
I have friends in Paris that can't drink tap water after they had led poisoning thanks to very old plumbing.
A lot of places are high levels of Chlorine that also have bad effects, for instance in Spain it's pretty high and linked to lung issues when showering.
Here still lead pipes are being discovered in old building, which has proven to lead to significant issues in Brain development of children.
Also often other residue is found of farming & medicine and other things seeping into the ground water.
So sadly finding clean & good water is not easy, bottled or tap.
Seems like even those systems might be causing additional harm:
> Ironically enough, the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis … a common water purification method shared by all three brands [of water tested]," the team wrote in the paper.
My five minutes of research suggests that it's cheaper to buy (as bottled water, in a store) all the water you need for drinking and cooking than to buy, install and maintain a purifier capable of removing lead.
this. you can buy 6 * 1.5L bottle pack for under 1.5 EUR from a supermarket. even a small brita jug would run you 25 for a combo with two cartridges. moreoever, brita works like the printer business and has horrible pricing policy.
while it seems trivial in amount, the bottled water is ironically cheaper than many developing countries (unless you go for large 20L bottles that you need to exchange for filled ones).
If you look at the list, even Brita doesn't claim that their pitcher filter the really nasty stuff. At most they "help to reduce". It looks like they are really designed only to remove the chlorine taste.
Their "Faucet Mount Filters" looks a bit more effective.
Who Dat! Also live in NO. We also filter our water (though my primary contamination motivation is lead w/ a 2 year old over plastic).
The S&WB almost needs it's own discussion thread. Not sure your average American HN reader can even comprehend the level of incompetence we have to deal with from that group.
I read these articles and the comments and wonder how many people who are concerned with these things also drink alcohol or drive dangerously or consume unhealthy food. All of which will affect their lives way worse than particles of plastic.
The problem is people don't know how to quantify the risk, including myself.
However there a number of people who panic! And the panicky people have loud voices. They treat everything like DDT or asbestos. That's not to say that caution is not warranted. It is, but take it easy, the frogs aren't turning gay and people are living longer, so long as they don't get hooked on addictive drugs, including tobacco, alcohol, MJ, amphetamines, etc.
> All of which will affect their lives way worse than particles of plastic.
Okay, are you saying we shouldn’t care whatsoever if we ingest PLASTIC (!!!) because beer and McDonalds exist? People shouldn’t care?
I don’t drink, I don’t eat fast food. I don’t “drive dangerously” and I sure as hell am going to do everything in my power to make sure I am not eating or drinking plastic. Same goes for my wife and kids.
Why the scare exclamations? Are you implying that plastics ought to be scarier to consume than those other things? Even though plastics have been specifically engineered to be as inert as possible, they're used in the body in medical applications, etc?
I read it as a form of sarcasm and irony. I liked the scare exclamations as a way to highlight the original statement about fast food and alcohol. Was not offended and didn't infer anything additional.
The reply just simply acknowledged all the things of concern, including fast food, driving patterns, and general risk overall. It's OK to be concerned about plastic, even if there are likewise additional concern areas in life.
I've never seen anyone toting big heavy and fragile glass carboy to Whole Foods, they're always hauling a lightweight plastic jug into a store that filtered the water with plastic PET tubing, plastic polyamide reverse osmosis filters, and plastic dispenser hardware, and likely taking it home to a water dispenser also predominately made of plastic. Bulk jug refills are cheaper and less wasteful than 12oz bottles but as a mechanism to reduce exposure to plastic contaminants I'm not going to assume it's meaningfully better.
That’s exactly me. Filling up at Whole Foods into glass bottles that are 1 gallon each. Bottles have handles, so I’m also pouring from them. But yes, the news about RO polyamide are concerning.
if even the filters are plastic then even glass containers wont help!
the only solution is to purchase a large steel tanker truck and drive it to the mountains and fill it up with hopefully enough pure water to use for the year.
No, I'm not. I have an RO filter for aquatic purposes because I want to remove all dissolved solids from the water. These dissolved solids are what gives water its taste.
RO water will have about 25 ppm TDS. Distilled brings that down to about 10 ppm. Bottled water is generally around 400 - 600 ppm TDS.
You're right in the fact that RO water has _more_ taste than distilled water, but it pales in comparison to the mineral content / taste in bottled water.
Also, I shouldn't have used the word "all", so substitute that with "almost all"
That's kind of what I do for my shrimp tank. I RO filter to get the mineral content close to zero, then add a specific amount of minerals to get the TDS to what it would be in their natural habitat.
There are RO systems which have a final stage to add minerals back into the water, but I don't know how well they actually work.
> the most commonly detected plastic was polyamide, a material commonly used in water filtration systems and "the most popular membrane material used in reverse osmosis
That's what I was thinking. This makes me think my system is less safe than I thought. BUMMER!!
This poster's cost drop on the $2/5Gal made me go down the cost analysis train on my own system.
I setup my own robust RO system at home and filter my own water. It uses a 20gal tank so the output is very high when demanded (slow regen, lots of storage). We use about 1400gal of drinking water from this system a year between 5 people and 3 pets (I filter their water too), filter media needs replacing every year. (1400/5)*2 = $560/yr cost if purchased water from "Whole Foods" which I don't have access to. I also use the water in the winter for humidifier units, so that probably boosts my usage a lot.
Filter replacement costs are ~$80 per year plus the RO membrane every 5yrs (80/5)
80+16 = $96 per year on media... let's just call it $100 to add margin for o-rings replacement or other tooling or random things.
560 - 100 = $460 savings over "Whole Foods"!! Neat! Not counting the convenience costs too.
Original investment for the system: $580.
Break-even in a bit over 1 year doesn't seem bad. Its been 4 years since I started doing this, so it seems like I am well ahead already.
Input water cost is minimal, I pump ground water so there's no cost other than electricity. There are other costs to my water treatment system that I won't include in the "drinking water" category since that's whole home. I also treat for iron/arsenic, which was a 1.8k filter and costs ~$80 in reagents per year.
Labor cost for sourcing and replacing the filters, o-rings, etc. should be factored in. And of course, sourcing the bottles from Whole Foods in comparison.
I like your evaluation here, not criticizing it. But I'm curious about adding the costs for time/material/travel to your costs.
For me, I'm not going to run a RO system because I can beat the cost against Whole Foods. I'm doing it because I believe in the RO system (even though the article casts a bit of a knock against the plastic membrane, which is unfortunate).
Oh, I have no plans of not drinking RO water because of this article. It was just interesting to me. Whole Foods water is very likely RO water too. Both my water and a grocery store water source are probably going to be very comparable as far as quality.
Sourcing the filters is extremely easy, I order them in sets of two complete sets every other year, since the cost for order two is slightly less.. then I can order them on some on-sale price instead on on-demand.
labor is extremely minimal. I have to replace filters only once per year and it takes about a half hour of time.
Labor saved over transporting water from off-site is not in the same ballpark.
I was inspired to do this because I tested our well water for arsenic and wasn't happy with the results. It was 30ppb, and it's now 2.5bbp from the tap (after the iron filter, but before the RO filter)
I had gotten the RO system in hopes that's all I needed, but after testing the water out of the RO system for arsenic, I was still unhappy with the results. ~15ppb... so likley un-oxinidated arsenic. Adding an iron filter to oxidize the water and remove both iron and arsenic did the trick.
Before I installed new filters, I started sourcing my water from grocery stores by buying 1gal jugs and it was more than tedious. I had new children in the house and I was wanting to avoid having them drink water that may be high in arsenic. With storage, travel, lugging large quantities of water around the store, and having to manage the milk jugs they came in was way more work than I wanted to do every week. It would have been easier if I had access to 5gal jugs, but still more work than the system is now. I had bought 5-10 1/gals each trip.
The store also uses an RO system, treating and filtering municipal water from tap on-demand. They don't truck the water in or store it. The regeneration, even with their large system is slow, so filling up 5-10gal jugs took a long time and there was sometimes a line. I did not like doing it. I would guess the time I would save not changing filters once per year would be eaten up by 1 or 2 trips to the store.
Pre-filled jugs were available at higher quantities for 3-5x the price.
so the only solution is to purchase a steel tanker truck and drive it out to the mountains and fill it up with hopefully enough pure mountain spring water to last the year.
