Yes, I agree with you the problem of water bottles. It has not only effected Italy but the worldwide. It is proved that water boiled/filtered is much healthy than bottled one, but I believe it is matter of business. We need to do a lot of awareness related to the impacts and hazards of enormous use of bottled water. Even now it is speeded much in the villages and slums and most of the people they don't take care of it and they throw it in the streets. I have seen some rural areas some plastics thrown near threes and bush and it caused erosion problems. It has a lot of environmental pollution as Elisa explained. Finally, I want to rise what is the best ways of encouraging boiled water? Are there any simple methods of water boiling and filtering that we can encourage the people living in the cities and in small villages? Best Regards Eng.Samatar

I fully agree with you. I would like to share my Uganda experience. Tap water in Kampala is not used for drinking without boiling and cooling. To boil water using Electricity or wood (Charcoal) for large population like Kampala (est. population more than 2 million)the energy consumption is very high. The consequence of deforestation is also marked. I used to buy 100 ml of water guard (Chlorine solution)bottle to chlorinate water for drinking purpose. This method help me to save money from buying bottled water and also decrease energy consumption (Electricity or fire wood).

I completely agree with the opinion that big economic interests encourage people, with advertising campaigns, to buy bottled water even where the quality of water is good and there’s no need to buy it. I just wanted to put in evidence some further severe consequences on environment which are caused by indiscriminate consumption of bottled water: - enormous increase in plastic waste, with obvious heavy consequences on pollution; - enormous increase of energy consumption for bottles production and –in the best cases- for their recovery; obviously this wider energy consumption determines also an increase in polluting emissions and water consumpion for its production processes. So, I think that instead of advertizing different kinds of bottled water in commerce, more awareness campaignes against the indiscriminate use of bottled water should be spread by governments, leaving the consumption of bottled water only for cases of real necessity.

It's true, the bottled water business in countries like ours (Italy)is so strong that even scientific evidence is not enough to change the situation. Public drinking water in Italy is - with very few exceptions - by far in compliance with all existing sanitary threshold values. In many areas- including the one where I stay - tap water is actually much better quality than almost all bottled waters. However, heavy advertising by the holdings which own the big mineral water companies and scarce public awareness of the issue, pushes most people to make exclusive or prevalent use of bottled water for drinking. Commercial tap water filers, instead of being a solution (except for situations with very serious water quality problems)are just another business. If part of the money spent on bottled water could be invested in the protection of water resources in Italy and developing countries, like Brazil (although Brazil is also in part an advanced country), the situation would be much better... We are in a situation where there is hope because we can see the solutions tecnically, but it is so difficult to bring all the different social and economic processes together. Especially when the political system does not even try so hard to do it!