Water, water everywhere

Living in Gwangyang last year, I ALWAYS bought water. For a while, I had the big huge water bottles delivered, but because I couldn't drink enough to offset the cost of the dispenser, it ended up being significantly more expensive option than buying multi-packs of the 1.5liter bottles. There were a couple of reason I bought - it seems everyone in the whole country recommends either buying or boiling water, and I lived close to one of the biggest steel mills on the planet (no, really) and so I really didn't trust what might be in my water source.

I'm pretty sensitive to any sort of microbial ick in water - when I lived in Wingate, I even had to brush my teeth with bottled water - so when I moved to Mokpo and listened to friends talk about not even boiling water and not having any problems, I decided to run a little test on myself. And was fine. I mean, I think about all the people who make coffee (doesn't boil long enough to kill the ick, IIRC) or ice made of tap water, and so it makes sense that it isn't THAT bad, but still, I was a bit concerned. Some folks even talk about running it through a Britta filter and feeling okay with it, but that doesn't kill anything or get rid of the heavy metal content.

And that is my big concern right now. I haven't experienced any digestive issues by drinking tap water, which tells me that there isn't anything growing in there to any significant degree. However, my headaches are kicking in a bit more, and sometimes you can smell the chlorine in the water. Plus, from what I've read, it isn't the bacteria in the water that is the problem, but the metals and other chemicals, and boiling doesn't do anything to combat that.

So I'm back at looking at drinking bottled water again. However, there are the consequences of the plastic used to make the bottles. While there is country wide recycling programs in effect, there is still an awful lot of plastic being used, and I don't want to contribute to that any more than I have to.

So, what is a slighty-princessy, somewhat-green, sorta-wanna-be-hippie to do? Especially considering that I live in the tiniest apartment ever? I mean, one of the good things about the 6-packs of 1.5 liter bottles is that they fit in my fridge, which is one of the few storage places I have left.

I think right now, I'm back on the bottled water train, but I am going to look for a place to buy one of the hand-pumps for the big bottles and then get a co-teacher to look into delivery service again. The big bottles are re-used, so there is less waste, which is an important thing in my book. While I recycle as much as I can living in an officetel (the big apartments have elaborate recycling bin systems, but after living here for 3 months, I'm still not 100% sure where I am supposed to put my trash, much less recycling or compost) I worry that it all gets lumped together when it gets picked up.

I will admit, though, that the bitter skeptical side of me says that they probably just fill the bottles with tap water, but I try to ignore that voice as much as posisble.