Bottled Water Is Draining Your Bank Account

While bottled water doesn't contain dioxins -- an urban myth that has been circulating around the Internet for years -- it isn't necessarily better for you than tap water. Phthalates are chemicals that are sometimes added to the plastic water bottles to make them more flexible and last longer. Phthalates are known environmental contaminants and act as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals and can leech into your water from the plastic bottle if it isn't stored properly.

In addition, bottled water has a number of detrimental effects on the environment. Unlike tap water, which you already get at your house, bottled water needs to be shipped across the country or even the world, wasting fossil fuels in its transport. Even water that is bottled from local public water sources still needs to be transported to the retail outlets where it is sold.

In addition, there is a huge amount of plastic waste from water bottles. It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil just to make the plastic used for bottled water each year, which is enough energy to power 100,000 cars for a year. It is estimated that nearly 90% of the plastic from bottled water is never recycled and ends up in landfills or the ocean.

How do you kick the bottled water habit? It's as simple as starting to drink tap water, which costs vastly less than bottled water. Tap water costs fractions of a penny per gallon -- about 0.2 cents -- while bottled water costs anywhere from 99 cents to $4 per gallon -- thousands of times more expensive than tap water.