A short film called The Story of Bottled Water by Anne Leonard was released Thursday, which was World Water Day. In The story of Bottled Water, Leonard shows how corporations have convinced Americans to spend additional cash on half a billion bottles of water each week though most people in this country can get it for free. What has now become a $ 5 billion-a-year industry and in chorus threatens public health and also the environment is the "Purified" bottled water.

On World Water Day

According to an article on HuffingtonPost.com, Anne Leonard said she chose World Water Day to release The Story of Bottled Water because it is:

"a good day to pause and consider the insanity of a global economy where 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water while other people spend billions on a bottled product that's no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water."

Leonard, in the Story of Bottled Water, compares spending cash on bottle water to buying a shrink-wrapped sandwich made by unknown hands costing $ 10,000. She points the finger at multi-billion marketing campaigns commissioned by industrial giants like Pepsi and Coca Cola and Nestle to make Americans afraid to drink tap water.

Bottled water contains toxic chemicals

The Story of Bottled Water points out that when people may think they're drinking purified water, it is often no safer than the water coming from the tap. It can also be less safe. The plastic in the bottle contains toxic chemicals that can leach to the water inside.

According to a report on mindfully.org, water bottles are made from various plastics, including a chemical that leaches into the water in the bottles to some degree, the Bisphenol-A (BPA). Bisphenal-A, it turns out, is a hormone disruptor that mimics estrogen and is linked to early onset puberty, declining sperm counts, obesity and breast and prostate cancer. In March 2007 a billion-dollar class action suit was filed in LA against five leading manufacturers of baby bottles containing Bisphenal-A.

Filter water at home

Leonard says that bottled water costs up to 2,000 times a lot more than tap water, yet up to 40 percent of bottled water is simply filtered tap water. People can filter their own water at home with products that cost anywhere from $ 15 to $ 120. The Story of Bottled Water underlines numerous other facts about bottled water, many of which Leonard calls "inconvenient" truth:

• Bottled water is subject to fewer health regulations than tap water.
• Municipalities often need money loans to cover more than the $70 million it costs to landfill water bottles alone each year, according to Corporate Accountability International.
• Making the plastic water bottles used in the U.S. takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars, not including the fuel required to transport the bottles from the factory.

Use metal water bottles

The Story of Bottled Water does see a bright side it its argument, nevertheless.

Leonard says that fewer people spend cash now on bottled water - sales fell slightly in 2009 for the very first time ever. More consumers are choosing to pass on bottled water at the store, carry reusable metal water bottles and filter their own water at home. It will cost you about $ 5.95 to $ 19.95 for steel or aluminum water bottles. Sure beats a $ 10,000 sandwich.