Here are some surprising facts about water...

Myth: It’s unhealthy to reuse the same plastic bottle for more than a few weeks.

Fact: In 2001, a masters student at the University of Idaho wrote a thesis stating that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic water bottles release dangerous levels of a carcinogenic chemical called diethylhexyl adipate, or DEHA, into their contents with reuse and over time. The media picked up on the thesis, sparking a chain of emails warning about the hazards of reusing plastic drinking bottles.
Although such a thesis was indeed written, it was never peer-reviewed or published in a journal – which is, in scientific circles, the basic requirement for any study to gain standing. What’s more, another study by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research found that the water in PET bottles contains the same trace levels of DEHA as the water in glass laboratory flasks, and that these levels were well below the 80-micrograms-per-litre safety mark for drinking water set by the World Health Organisation. That said, the South African Food Advisory Consumer Service warns that sharing and reusing water bottles does make them prone to bacterial contamination.

Solution:
To avoid downing a nasty bug, wash your bottle thoroughly with hot, soapy water after each use.

Myth: South Africa’s tap water is the best in the world.

Fact: This nugget has been passed off as common knowledge in South Africa for decades, but if you dig a little deeper you will see that this is an opinion based on faith rather than fact. Until recently, no one knew for sure what the standard of South Africa’s drinking water was. In fact, when the government rolled out its Drinking Water Quality Regulation Programme in 2004, less than 50 percent of South Africa’s water service authorities even bothered to monitor the quality of the stuff they pumped out to the population.

Fortunately, the picture has improved: since March 2009, every water provider across the country has been checking the quality of its drinking water against standards set by the government on a regular basis. Those that meet or exceeded the standards are awarded Blue Drop status, indicating that the number of micro-organisms present in the water doesn’t pose a health threat. To find out if your area’s water meets national standards, log on to www.dwaf.gov.za/bluedrop and click on “My Water”.