We've all seen those advertisements for bottled water.

It's a hot summer day, the sun beaming in a cloudless sky. Desert winds send dust devils spinning across a bleached highway. Heat waves blur the landscape until a single object is able to cut through the distortion -- a cold, crystalline bottle of water.

In the real world, however, the picture isn't quite as palatable. Bottled water might be hyped as a health booster, but some types might instead be potentially hazardous -- not to mention environmentally unfriendly. And some businesses are starting to pay attention and ditch the bottles.

The belief that bottled water is somehow healthier than tap water, which is an image promoted by the marketing of the product, simply isn't true. As an industrialized nation, the U.S. maintains strict standards with the help of the Environmental Protection Agency and its regular inspections of public water for bacteria and toxic chemicals.

Those standards are the same for bottled water, so the bottling companies follow suit by making sure their water is safe enough to drink. But unlike what's coming from the tap, bottled water is often stripped of the chlorine and fluoride -- two sanitizing agents -- because their flavors are distinguishable to drinkers. Often times, however, bottled water is merely tap water repackaged -- and it isn't always clean.

The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental group of 1.2 million members, recently tested bottled water for chemical abnormalities. While the majority of the water came back clean, the NRDC said, "About 22 percent of the brands we tested contained, in at least one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits. If consumed over a long period of time, some of these contaminants could cause cancer or other health problems."

Bottled water has recently been linked to cancer because of its plastic container. In the latest issue of Cancer Research, the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, a report showed the link between a bisphenol A, a chemical that seeps into food from manufactured products, and breast cancer. The chemical, which is found in water bottles, causes healthy human breast cells to show genealogical characteristics of cancerous cells.

And bottled water certainly isn't healthy for the environment. According to the Pacific Institute, a tax-exempt environmental research organization, bottled water production for the United States alone required more than 17 million barrels of oil in 2006 -- not including its transportation. On top of that, production created more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. The Pacific Institute also estimated that it took 3 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of bottled water.

"It's really kind of silly," said Kevin VanDeraa, owner of Cupcake Cafe in Minneapolis. VanDeraa recently decided to stop selling bottled water in his cafe. "We try to be as environmentally friendly as possible."

Instead, VanDeraa offers a water filter for customers to fill their cups with. VanDeraa is inspired by the belief that "water is just a commodity that shouldn't be sold."

For VanDeraa, the choice was not a simple one. Typical markup on a bottle of water is nearly 700 percent for his business and, with Cupcake Cafe only blocks away from the University of Minnesota, it was a significant financial sacrifice.

The city of Minneapolis seemingly shares that belief. In February 2008, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak was honored by local groups for his involvement with the movement against bottled water. Rybak has called for a review of the environmental impact caused by bottled water waste, invested largely in the maintenance of Minneapolis water quality and continues to promote the Think Outside The Bottle Pledge.

Liz Larson, a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has worked closely with Think Outside The Bottle and taken its pledge. On top of that, she started a pledge of her own: stop the sales of bottled water on her campus.

So far, Larson has collected over 500 signatures. She continues to be involved with environmental issues and, with her international studies major emphasis being environmental studies, she plans on carrying the bottled water issue much further.

Every day, people are changing their habits to live cleaner, greener lifestyles. But with bottled water being called the "blue gold" of the 21st century by investors, consumers are likely to continue to hear ads urging them to buy bottles rather than ditch them.