I have heard debate of people saying that one water is the best while another is not as good as their choice, Some would say rain water is safer and so on, and this has led to a lot of people getting worried about their water and its safety. How do I say that a water is clean or if I come visiting, how do we come to a conclusion that the ozonized, reversed osmosis, purified, spring, or alkaline water you are giving me is the best water for me to be taking? Actually, my aim for this post is to boost the confidence we have in the water we drink once it has been treated and lean no matter what type of water it is.
Let's go back to before civilization around 500BC, people used the eye test to determine if a water is clean or not since there were no fancy purification or filtration method that we have now. In the 1800s we began water filtration and in the 1900s we began purification of water. But let's look at water and understand it a little.
The way the earth is designed, water is everywhere. It is either under us as underground water, sitting as in ponds or rivers, standing as in glacier, rising as in steam, and falling with rain. The purest form of natural H2O the earth can get would be during evaporation. During evaporation the sun picks water from the ground and when the water reaches a particular altitude, it condenses and become heavy after which it rains.
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Cloud water isn't as pure since water is a solvent and in the atmosphere, pollutant and chemicals could mix with the water. The water that falls back to the earth replenishes ground water. When it reaches the ground, it replenishes the lake, stream and oceans, and it replenishes the water under the ground including Aquifer which is water pulled together around rocks. In the US, Aquifer makes up 40% of water supply and this is because the water goes through a lot of earths process while trying to reach the rock underground. This process filters a lot of the chemicals and impurities from the water and the water also picks up earth minerals via osmosis.
When you use well, you are trying to access groundwater. When a well is so deep that ground water pressure around the rock is high that the water reaches the surface, it is referred to as an artesian well. When aquifer has a lot of pressure that it begins to come out on the ground, it can be regarded as spring water. So many companies use these water and some depending on the country would not state the source of their water but according to law, once a water is packaged, it is important to state the source.
Most bottle water plant get their water from public supply where they use purification processes like reversed osmosis or distillation. So back to our groundwater, it is important to state that ground water is not fresh, aquifer just like any other water can be contaminated by its environment and bottle water isn't the best if we want to consider some factors including the fact that PET bottles might not be the best place to package them into and so on.
So with that said, no water can actually beat for being the but provided it is treated, you are good to have that non-tasty water go down your throat without worries. If you are drinking a packaged water, chances are that they are either from lakes, rivers, aquifer, or human made wells but when they are treated in the company, they are good to drink.
Do not let names fool you, Purified water is water purified in the factory that can be gotten from any of the sources I mentioned above, distilled water is evaporated water being captured which is the closest to H2O as we can get, Mineral water is spring water topped with a little amount of mineral.
Reference
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/artesian-water-and-artesian-wells
https://www.iwapublishing.com/news/brief-history-water-and-health-ancient-civilizations-modern-times
https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/chemical/chemistry-and-seawater/salty-sea/weird-science-pure-water-and-water-mixtures
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/evaporation-and-water-cycle
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-groundwater
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/water-purification
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/water-purification
https://www.ecologixsystems.com/library-water-purification/
