drinking water is essential to good health. While the EPA mandates certain standards, and municipal city water is generally safe to drink, there are many reasons why you may not feel you want to drink the water out of your tap. Especially if your personal tap water has smell and taste issues. Common water problems, even in municipal water systems can include hard water, which is an excess amount of calcium and magnesium in your water, excess iron in your water, which can cause red, brown, orange or yellow stains. Both can compromise your plumbing and require more soaps, cleansers, and other products to counteract the problems. Hydrogen sulfide in the water, which is more common in private wells, can cause your water to smell malodorous. Some people, due to these problems, choose to drink bottled water. But this has its own set of drawbacks. While many people believe drinking bottled water is safer than tap water, this is simply not true. Tap water is subject to the same EPA standards as bottled water. Additionally, over half of all bottled water is actually straight from the tap, thus you are paying more for that tap water, and paying for the package, as well. (Check the label on the bottle. If it says PWS, it is from a public water system, ie tap water.) Additional problems with bottled water include: • Possible contaminants from the plastic. o Most bottled water, these days, is in BPA free bottles, however other toxins can leak in from the plastic the bottles are made of. • High environmental costs. o Plastic is made from crude oil. o Bottles often wind up in landfills rather than recycled. • Some bottled water samples have even shown to have such contaminants as phthalates, mold, microbes, benzene, trihalomethanes, even arsenic.