Boston diners can now get a squeeze of lemon as well as a shot of eco-friendliness in their tap water, as some local restaurants have decided to stop serving bottled water, citing the environmental and social costs of the bottling process.

Several Boston-area restaurants, including Grasshopper, Herrell’s Ice Cream and T.J. Scallywaggle’s, all in Allston, announced the decision April 3, but the Other Side Cafe on Newbury Street eliminated bottled water and disposable cups more than a year ago, said Other Side partner Henry Patterson.

Patterson said the cafe’s environmentally conscious attitude is different from “green washing” — when companies make their business practices seem more environmentally responsible than they actually are.

“Maybe it’s a little more responsible, but it is certainly not green and it’s more expensive,” Patterson said. He said at least one major bottling company marks up the price of ground water that could have come from municipal sources.

Patterson said some bottling companies profit from selling water while filling landfills with discarded bottles, but he prefers to draw from the tap and pay a little more than a penny a gallon.

The cafe now routinely serves tap water to customers for free, and Patterson said he has yet to come across a customer who has asked for bottled water.

“I’m absolutely convinced we’re more profitable getting out of that stupid business,” he said.

Michael Oshman, executive director of the Green Restaurant Association, a nonprofit that helps restaurants become more environmentally sustainable, said restaurants can easily eliminate bottled water by doing everything in-house. Some companies have filtering and bottling systems within the restaurant, providing bottled water without the environmental cost of transporting it, he said.

Eliminating bottled water is just one of hundreds of green efforts that restaurants can make, Oshman said. Others include using energy-efficient lighting, more environmentally friendly cleaning supplies and eliminating disposable and non-recyclable products.

The Natural Resource Defense Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment, considers using bottled water to be an excessive waste, said NRDC spokeswoman Courtney Hamilton.

Americans consume 50 billion bottles of water a year, she said. Producing and transporting bottles requires oil, Hamilton said, and 70 percent of water bottles wind up in landfills or incinerators.

“That’s a whole lot of energy, a whole lot of pollution and a whole lot of waste that could all be avoided with the turn of a faucet,” she said.

Hamilton said the water manufacturers market as more pure and healthier than tap water can come from areas in the world where natives do not have clean water for themselves, and it does not have any proven health or safety benefits.

“Many restaurants and consumers are opting out of bottled water because they’re coming to realize that the environmental cost just isn’t worth the appearance of luxury,” she said. “By no longer offering bottled water at their businesses, restaurateurs remind patrons that tap water is not only safe but healthy, and classy enough to be served at high-end restaurants.”