We all know that it’s important to drink water every day, but the way we get that drinking water has changed over the years. Back in the day, the idea of buying drinking water would’ve sounded silly. We have water pumped directly into our homes, after all.

Nowadays, the bottled water industry is huge and growing every year. In the United States, we drink more bottled water than milk, beer and even soda. Soda companies aren’t stupid. They’ve jumped on the bottled water bandwagon and now make their own bottled water. Coca-Cola owns Dasani, and PepsiCo owns Aquafina.

The bottled water industry is so huge that in America we drink roughly 39 gallons of bottled water per person each year. It’s not cheap either. A gallon of water costs about $1.22, but considering many single-serving bottles are consumed and cost more for the same amount of water, the price goes up even more.

We have to wonder if we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that bottled water is better for us than tap water. Turns out, roughly half of all bottled water is just tap water that was filtered a little bit more anyway. In blind taste tests between tap water and bottled water, most people can’t even tell the difference.

Still not convinced that you don’t need to lug those bottles of water from the store into your home? Here’s more proof.

Those plastic bottles your water is in may be leaking chemicals into the water you’re drinking, and the water bottles are also bad for the environment. For every 6 bottles of water sold, one 1 ends up getting recycled.

Meanwhile, in most cities, the drinking water is tested to make sure it’s safe to consume. You can check the quality of your water at this link.

So, if saving money without sacrificing taste or quality sounds good to you, and if you care about the environment, just say no to bottled water.

There is one exception. If your water comes from a private well, nobody is monitoring the quality of your water. You should have it tested to make sure it’s not contaminated.

If you’re still not convinced that your tap water is safe to consume, watch the video below to learn about an app that will show you how you can fill up your reusable water bottles with safe drinking water instead of buying bottled water.

Do you drink bottled water?