If you are like most Americans, you are aware that water supplies are not as dependable as we would like. Over 2100 contaminants have been discovered in drinking water thus far. Our water source may be free of some of these, but who knows which are still present?
Let’s assume you’ve acted on the warnings you have heard and have stopped drinking faucet or even well water as is. You have decided only filtered water is worthy of yourself and your family. If so, you have elected to either buy a filter and purify it yourself, or to continually purchase bottled water in some form.
Now you are planning a vacation or a camping trip and you want to take along the same pure water that you enjoy at home. If you have elected to drink bottled water, then it’s simple. Just take along a case or two. Over eight billion gallons of filtered water are sold annually. In spite of the fact that water is so abundant, in bottles it could be more expensive than gasoline. But for a vacation, bottled water is probably pure enough, though maybe not as pristine as claimed by the label. Too, if you discard the dozen or more bottles you use on your vacation, you only add to the environmental problem of non-biodegradable plastics in land fills or on road sides.
Some of you have purchased a gravity feed filter. In the long run, you will save money over purchasing bottled water. If you have room, why not pack your water filter in the car and filter all drinking and cooking water on your vacation? This would provide all the water you need and would guarantee it to be as pure as you get at home. Neither will you have the problem of discarding bottles.
If your device to filter water is not portable or you simply don’t have room to take it, What is the next option? Plan ahead and filter extra water now to take with you on vacation. Store it away so that you have ample clean pure water from home.
The problem is, in what do you store and transport it? You know the water is clean when it leaves the filter. You certainly don’t want it deemed unsafe because of the container. This is a very real concern. The PET bottles (made of polyethylene terephthalate) used by most bottled water companies, are, as far as we know now, safe as long as they are kept in cool places. Water stored in them at higher temperatures for a period of time might become contaminated with chemicals from the bottle. Reusing them is not sanitary either.
Another option is to store your filtered water in the hard plastic bottles used for water coolers, or the smaller ones used for sports drinks. They look safe but the National Institutes of Health recently tested bisphenol used to make these bottles, and found it caused neurological problems in babies before birth. The long range effect on others is still the subject of further study. So that option may be out of the picture for you.
This narrows our choices even more. We want the pure water from home but can’t bring the filter. If we transport it, we are in danger of ingesting substances leeched into the water from the containers that may harm us or our families. Solution- filter extra water at home prior to the vacation and store it in glass containers. This would include jars, bottles, and glass lined thermoses.
This solution answers several problems. First we won’t have the discarded bottle problem, nor the plastic leeching problem of those bottles. We will have the save clean water we filter at home, and when the bottles are empty, they can be washed and reused without danger. The resulting peace of mind will only add to the enjoyment of your vacation.
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