We should ask ourselves what is the difference between bottled water and tap water. As many of us continue to buy and use it I'm sure that in the distant past we must have made a conscious decision to start purchasing bottled water because of one reason or another. Sometimes with the passage of time these reasons get lost and as creatures of habit we carry on doing the same things.

Let's attempt to re-examine just some of these points that triggered us into choosing this way of drinking water and see if they are still valid. Well, I can think of two reasons of the top of my head, the first of which is that bottled water is purer than the tap variety.

That may be true but for me I think that it's a bit of a gray area, as quality standards for bottled are about the same as tap and some evidence I have uncovered indicates that it's less rigorous and less controlled. Some of the even larger named drinks companies have been known to sell filtered tap water which may of had some minerals added to improve its taste. Quite a neat trick that one and something we fall for as we keep buying it, perhaps oblivious to its true origin.

The second reason and possibly the best we will consider is that bottled water is better for us. When you realize how much we spend buying the stuff, on an annual basis the figure is quite staggering. I had the chance to see what the annual spend in the US was for 2006 and it was almost 11 billion dollars. So, you can imagine that these companies have a  pretty decent advertising budget that is primed to sell us a message and an image that buying bottled water is a wise choice for the sake of our well being and a healthy lifestyle.

Again, on closer examination we can begin to pick holes in that argument. I read a recent consumer survey which pitched bottled water against tap water in a series of blind tastings. Surely the bottled makes would score a resounding and convincing win. How very surprising, as the end results gave tap water the overall winning spot.

One other recent finding placed a worrying question mark over its purity when it was found that certain, unhealthy plastic compounds began to leech into bottled water that was kept inside the trunk of a car. This was because of the rise in temperature, as such water ought to be kept in a cool, shady place, which you can even see mentioned somewhere on the bottle's label.

Now that you know this, perhaps the convenience and novelty of bottled water has worn off a little bit.