Trying to turn folk off of bottled water… and turn on the tap 
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I drank tap water all the time in Bretagne, each week an analysis report was pinned to the door of the mairie for all to see. Down here, I won’t drink it because of the drought and the thought that water might not be coming from where it should and is not so clean. I do buy a local bottled water but that obviously has to have more stringent checks than the tap stuff.
Why not check the Report from your current supplier of tap water.
Excellent. At last a push back against an anachronistic & waste producing fetish.
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Absolutely.
Apologies to those who have heard this story before, but when I lived in Turks & Caicos many of the resorts would serve bottled Fiji water to their guests - which A) was nothing special and B) had been shipped halfway around the world from Fiji!
This was particularly absurd since Providenciales, the island I lived on, had two desalination plants which produced perfectly drinkable tap water, which was also available in bottles of all sizes.
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Errrm. I wouldn’t bet on that.
I have been converted to tap, but it reminds me that a very great French friend of ours when we used to visit here in the '90s, had been an engineer in many places as well as a forced labourer in Germany, so had picked up on the various senses of humour that he encountered.
We once asked him if the tap water was safe to drink. He drew himself up to his full 5ft 6 and entoned in his mock affronted voice ‘France is a civilised country’. Then sat down, we knew he was joking but were nevertheless abashed.
On the way home in England we called at a service area and I went to a tap to fill our water bottle. The sign above it said ‘Non Potable’. We couldn’t help laughing at the turned tables and he appreciated the story the next time we visited.
We did go back to bottle for a year or so after, following repairs to water pipes in the district, mud came out of the tap when it was restored, but at least one of the nurses who visited Fran insisted on only drinking from the tap, so we reconverted. 
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It’s all a total con and hugely wasteful of plastic. Not that knowledge of those two facts entirely prevents us buying the bottled fizzy stuff (usually Château Super U).
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Our tap water is supplied by Eaux de la Barousse and comes directly from deep under the Pyrenees. A squidge in the Sodastream makes it the best drinking water ever. Or you can buy it bottled at the source.
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Yeah, I keep thinking that I should get one.
Then I look at an Amazon listing for 2x “60l” CO2 cartridges at £46 - they are sold, it seems, not by the volume of gas but by the volume of beverage it will carbonate. OK fair enough.
120l of fizzy water for £46, ignoring other comestibles, is about 38p or 46 euro ¢ per litre.
Super U charge 0,54€ a litre (the six pack of 1.25l bottles) and they throw in a free bottle 
I believe the canisters can be recycled, and Sodastream themselves rather want you to subscribe to their service (though I hear it works out quite expensive for gas) but it seems DIY is only cheaper than buying from the supermarket when drinking 100’s of litres of fizzy.
Amazon also list a DrinkMate machine which seems to be a well regarded marque at £90 - but if I’m only saving 10p a litre or less I have to drink 1000l of the stuff to break even. We buy maybe 2-3l of fizzy water a week in the UK so we’re looking at a 10 year ROI (assuming the machine lasts that long).
Indeed, my understanding, at least for the UK, is that the standard for tap water is higher than that for bottled.
And it depends if you like only lightly fizzy which I think is what soda stream does IMHO.
I used to have a separate drinking water spigot in London which used a filter cartridge as it tasted like chemicals without it.
In SE 47, the tap water is absolutely fine neat from the tap.
The opposite, really - so another nail in the coffin of the idea of getting one.
I guess the appeal comes from carbonating more “esoteric” beverages.
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Actually just means not inspected and tested so 90% of the time will be perfectly fine (unless perhaps recycled from the service station toilets 
)
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We didn’t test it.
Yep, I second a pushback on bottled water and all the waste that goes with it.
Delboy had the right idea - no one would even notice
I have to admit to drinking fizzy water. I was advised to drink more water by a pharm and the fizz makes it more appealing to me. ‘Crystalline - eau de source’ - a few cents 1.5 L from C4
One advantage I find with carbonated water is that it keeps longer in the bottles I have in the car. The carbonic acid discourages flora & fauna.
I’m a late convert to a filter jug. Blundered into a stand in Sains, Frome, SOM. Brita filter jugs 1/2 price and 3rd party filter refills from Amz which work as well as the Brita filters that came with the jug but at 1/2 the price.
Now there’s no brown stain/scum on my teacup [blk tea/no milk] and the soapy taste I had when using tap water is no more. Same with the coffee.
At the moment you can get a Sodastream machine, plus gas bottle plus storage bottle for €60. The gaz refill is €12 and lasts around 2 months and I must use at least 1 litre per day. Super U do their own brand gaz refill for a couple of euros cheaper.
To be honest, it is not about the cost. We are blessed with the best water that ever came out of a tap. Direct from under the mountains without passing a reservoir and treatment works. We do not really appreciate it now UNTIL we go to a different region.
Ah yes, Big Clive - he’s a hoot.
Quite knowledgeable about electrical stuff - he often deconstructs cheap Chinese electrical gizmos and the dreadful quality of some of them will make your hair curl (literally if attached to 220V).