Don't assume that bottled water is any safer (or more dangerous) than your tap. After all, when you look at the fine print of cheaper bottled waters, you'll often see something like "Sourced from the XXX municipal water supply."
I also remember staying at the Poland Springs resort and observing that they had septic tanks a 10 minute walk away from the "shrine" to the original "Poland Spring," and finding trash in the woods that had been there for years.
Let me give you the data to back it up:
https://www.wpr.org/dnr-says-bottled-water-companies-arent-r....
One 2021 study found PFAS in 39 out of 101 bottled water products that ranged in levels from almost zero to nearly 19 parts per trillion. David Strifling is director of the Water Law and Policy Initiative at Marquette University Law School. He said there’s no general assurance that bottled water is safer than tap water.
The meme that corporations exist exclusively for the benefit of shareholders is a very recent, very extreme phenomenon, yielding exactly the sort of results you would expect. Externalizing costs, especially in ways that are dispersed enough not to be addressable by any particular affected party, is the whole point of the modern enterprise. It wasn’t always this way and it need not be this way in the future.
In sheer probability, your 'dont do X' is really a minority outlier and doesn't help anyone.
Furthermore he may be a minority (or not, all we know is you both have a different social circle) but that just make him someone with originals idea so let’s listen instead of blaming (please).
However my understanding is that proclaiming someone opinion is a “minority outlier” without any more info or source is rude and close minded. Also, how do you understand “minority” in his comment?
It’s like saying “I have a different opinion of yours and I think your opinion is not popular here so shut up please.” By the reactions, his post brought interest and more ideas from others so it’s a good think he didn’t auto-censored.
I used to work in municipal water software and I don't think this statement can be said broadly. It helps to segregate discussion of water into segments:
- Water extraction and storage health
- Water mainline delivery health
- Water lateral/service line health
Extraction and storage are usually pretty good across the board. Mainline can vary and lateral/service line varies highly in quality.
Mainline health usually comes down to maintaining pressure and flow, especially at the end of a service area. In some cities you'll see them dump water from the hydrant, other cities don't have such good hygiene (and stagnant water is dangerous). Service lines have historically been considered on the owner to deal with; there's now federal funding to fight things line lead service lines (of which there are still huge amounts). Service lines do impact overall water health though, as not every water meter or mainline connection has backflow prevention.