While our household isn’t the “greenest” on the block, we have committed to taking small steps to live a little greener.  One of these steps is to stop buying and drinking bottled water.  According to the Clear Air Council,  Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. We no longer wanted to be part of that statistic.

For many people, you can drink tap water. The standards set for municipal water sources are actually much higher and monitored far more stringently than bottle water sources.  In our case, the pipes in our rental are a bit questionable. So, we’ve opted for a water filtration system.  We bought a Brita Water pitcher from Target. It’s affordable and easy to use.

Brita Water Pitcher available atTarget
Now that we’ve been doing this for a couple of months, we are looking into a more on-demand system. We’re finding that the Brita isn’t large enough and doesn’t filter fast enough to keep up with our water consumption.  Some replacements to the pitcher are water filter systems that hookup directly to your kitchen tap.  Here are some contenders.

PUR Water Filter available at Target

Mulitpure MPAD Aqua Dome Countertop If you’d like to research water filtration systems for yourself, here is a good water filter comparison guide.When we’re at home, we drink our water from glasses. However, when we’re out and about, we use reusable bottles. We both use one of these.

CamelBak BPA-FREE Better Bottle – 25 oz. from REI

As much as we like those bottles, there are quite a few other alternatives. Here are some of the ones that I’ve found. {This wouldn’t be one of my posts without some eyecandy.}

Aluminum Bottles from Earthlust

Ech2o Filtered Water Bottles – 25 oz. These bottles have a water filtration system built-in.

Bilt Decal Fresco Stainless-Steel Water Bottle from REI

Waterbox Icon Stainless-Steel Bottle – 700ml from REI

Sigg Hello Kitty Aluminum Water Bottle 0.6L

For those bottling their own water, any other tips that I haven’t covered?