I used to buy a lot of water and can taste the plastic. Large multi-gallon jugs are the worst. Volume packaged small bottles can be bad too. If you wonder what to look for - drill a hole in a plastic bottle (had to, since the lid wasn’t opening) and look at at your own risk taste the water afterwards. You won’t forget the taste and will be able to detect it elsewhere. With BPA causing estrogen surges, it can be valuable to have some kind of detection mechanism, especially at conferences and events.
Most important line in the article, by far: (edit: if you happen to live in much of Europe, Japan, Canada, or the United States, among other places, like I do)
“Tap water, by and large, is much safer than bottled water,” said Mason.
Lead pipes are only a problem if the water is acidic and leeches the lead. If you're concerned you should get the water quality report from your water provider and/or have your water tested.
There are filters you can purchase for under $100 to filter lead. The EPA has a lot of information on Filtration Systems and the NSF certifies filters for Lead Removal.
Vote for legislators in November who promise to ensure that this issue is addressed. Lead poisoning is a real problem in the rustbelt and northeast, and should be addressed asap, ideally at the federal level. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lead-pipes-everywhere_u...
> Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world.
I'm not a big fan of accusing people of whataboutism in general, but in this case, it's not even relevant. Your parent comment asked, "Ok, bottled water has plastic in it. I know that some tap water goes through lead pipes. Is tap water going through lead pipes still more healthy than bottled water with plastic in it?"
The question was a very reasonable one, and just happened to contain the phrase "what about".
Anything that is not plastic. Plastic bottles should be banned. You can deliver water in aluminum, glass, cardboard, paper...plastic is just the cheapest and easiest thing to do and the massive externalities of the widespread use of plastic are harming us, the oceans and the environment at large.
As a side note, I often wonder why people defend the immoral actions of corporations. Corporations will defer the cost of absolutely anything when they are legally able to. “Oh we can make more money at the cost of the environment? Excellent, let’s do that”. Until someone comes along and says actually no, you can’t do that. And then the corporation is forced to make very slightly fewer billions upon billions of dollars.
pistoriousp did a perfectly good job of answering this five minutes ago, but if you want a very specific answer that includes a product currently for sale, I'd point you to this: https://boxedwaterisbetter.com/pages/why-boxed-is-better
pistoriousp didn't really answer. Aluminum cans don't scale well to over 500ml (have you seen a 1.5lt bottle made of aluminum?), and even at 500ml they require pressurization to hold. Tetrapac is still plastic inside, but a lot more expensive, with lower lifespan and robustness and with much higher carbon footprint. It's probably a bit less vulnerable to plasticizer leaching but that's the only thing it can offer.
As for glass, I'm sorry, but this is the stupidest thing I've heard all week. You obviously don't understand anything about this issue if you propose to use glass for bottled water.
The study was commissioned by Orb Media, who have more information on methodology and the full lab report: https://orbmedia.org/stories/plus-plastic