Bottled or tap?

Though pundits and diehards have been debating the subject for several years, “bottled or tap?” seems to have emerged as the it-question for the summer of 2007. From what I’ve been able to learn, media from San Francisco to New York to Rome positioned the issue on the public radar in the early part of the season, and it has since propagated across the dispersed nodes of the blogosphere with little attrition (see, for example, recent posts by greenLAgirl, The Green Miles, and Filip Modderie’s post at The House of Innovation). Interestingly, voices of dissent seem mostly absent from the discussion: the vast majority of media and blog writers seem to agree that the answer to “bottled or tap?” is an obvious tap, tap, and tap.

Many, of course, are the reasons that inform this answer. As most writers are quick to note, a great deal of bottled water is stored in non-biodegradable plastic, a material implicated in global pollution, as well as in global oil wars. The material has also been implicated in health scares: researchers discovered that, when exposed to heat, phthalates added to some kinds of plastic bottles may leach into and contaminate the water stored in these bottles – thus capsizing any argument that bottled is healthier than tap.

And if pollution, wars, and health scares aren’t sufficiently dissuading, writers are also quick to note that those who drink bottled water may be setting themselves up as mere dupes of advertising deception: according to the National Resources Defense Council, “one brand of 'spring water' whose label pictured a lake and mountains, actually came from a well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a hazardous waste dump, and periodically was contaminated with industrial chemicals at levels above FDA standards.”

These are clear, persuasive arguments, well defended from facile contradictions and oppositions. And yet…

When Ale and I moved from Milan to San Diego in 1998, Mimi’s veterinarian urged us to provide Mimi with bottled water rather than with water from the tap – not because our hairy baby was sick, but because the vet felt that the local tap water was unsafe. More recently, I was chatting with my dentist when the subject of tap water came up: he told me that he uses filtration systems not only for the water in his home, but also for the water in his office. Although filtering his office water is expensive, he believes that running unfiltered tap water through his delicate instruments would damage them. We’ve had a filtration system installed in our home and are quite pleased – at the very least, my spaghetti alle vongole no longer taste of chlorine. And yet...

I suspect that the poor-quality of tap water in San Diego (and perhaps other parts of Southern California) may constitute something of an exception: I’ve had tap water in many places – abroad and in several U.S. states – that was fresh and truly delicious. Filtration in such places would be completely unnecessary.

It would seem, then, that tap is probably a generally good answer to the question: bottled or tap – but, in some places and on some occasions, that good answer may need to be qualified. Filtered tap water would probably be a better answer for places like San Diego, though straight tap is fine if you’re lucky enough to live in a place like Seattle. And sparkling water bottled in glass would probably be a better answer for occasions like lunch and dinner: even though I’m glad that we have a water filtration system at home, I still consume bottled water at lunch and dinner because that fizz just does something to the tastes and aromas of food that still water doesn’t.

Bottled or tap? I think my answer would have to be: it depends.