The main sources of drinking water today are tap water and bottled water.
Here we explain which water to drink and why it should be filtered.
Bottled water
Bottled water has a number of drawbacks.
The first is ecological. The billions of bottles consumed each year require energy (oil) for their manufacture, for their recycling (in the case of those that are recycled) and, above all, end up largely in nature, in the world's rivers and oceans. Behind the visual pollution of bottles littering the countryside lies a much more worrying problem, that of microplastics and nanoplastics. As plastic packaging degrades, it inevitably ends up in the stomachs of animals and ultimately in our bodies.
The second disadvantage is economic.
Even if the price of bottled water is still affordable today, it still represents a significant budget for a family over the course of a year.
The last, but by no means least, disadvantage concerns health.
Even if tap water is not free from pollution, it is still relatively well regulated in Europe, and there are precise potability standards. As far as bottled water is concerned, the legislation is much more flexible and a number of recent analyses have shown that this water is polluted, often to a much worse degree than tap water, including by microplastics.
Tap water
As we have just said, although it is governed by laws and analyses, it contains more and more pollutants, which even treatment plants no longer have the capacity to filter.
Pesticides from intensive farming, chemical pollutants from industrial sites, drug residues from our urine, such as antibiotics, anti-depressants and hormones, heavy metals - nothing is spared.
Water chlorination is effective against certain bacteria, and wastewater treatment plants are effective against certain pollutants, but some pass through and end up in our tap water. Even in small quantities, these pollutants accumulate in our bodies, and their cocktail effect can be harmful to our health in the long term.
Filtered water
Access to fresh, healthy, purified water is possible today with British Berkefeld® filtration, developed almost two centuries ago. Operating by gravity, these filtration systems combine ease of use with uncompromising performance.
A British Berkefeld® system combined with Ultra fluoride or Ultra Sterasyl cartridges effectively filters many pollutants likely to be found in tap water.
It's easy to use, self-contained and gives you access to clean, purified water at a cost of 2 euro cents per litre filtered (based on 10 litres filtered per day using an Ultra Sterasyl cartridge).
