Facts about Bottled Water & Tap Water (2024)

Page 10 of 14

The Riseof Bottled Water

Bottled water has grown more andmore popularover the last few decades. The IBWA estimatesthat in1976, each American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water. By 2014, they were drinking more than 21 times as much. Today, more than one out of every six bottled drinks sold in this country is a bottle of water, making bottled water nearly as popular as carbonated soft drinks.

The IBWA attributes the growing popularity of bottled water to health-consciousness. A 16-ounce bottle of Coca-Colahas 190calories and 52grams of sugar, while a 16-ounce bottle of water has no calories, no sugar, and no artificial sweeteners. However, that doesn’t explainwhy consumers are choosing bottled water over tap water, which is alsosugar-free and calorie-free.

Taste

One of the most common reasons people give for drinking bottled water is that it tastes better than their local tap water. For instance, in a blind taste test at the offices ofBuzzfeed, staffers universally agreed that all the bottled waters they tried were better than the sample of unfiltered Los Angeles tap water, which tasters described as “pool water” and “disgusting.”

However, this result is actually the exception rather than the norm. In most blind taste tests, tap water easily holds its own against bottled waters, even the pricey ones. You can see the same result in numerous cities, both in the U.S. and abroad:

Safety

Many people choose bottled water because of concerns about the safety of their tap water. In many cases, these fears are perfectlyreasonable.

Environmental writer Elizabeth Royte, author of the new book, “Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It,” points out in an interview withNPRthat more than 10% of the community water systems in the U.S. don’t meet the standards set by theSafeDrinking Water Act. Also, about 10% of all Americans get their water from private wells, which aren’t covered under the SDWA.That meansabout 60million Americans are getting tapwater that may or may not be safe to drink.

However, choosing bottled water isn’t really a solution. According to theEPA, the standards for bottled water in the U.S. are exactly the same as those for tap water – and bottled water isn’t subject to the same reporting standards as tap water. Under the SDWA, municipal water systemsmust send users a consumer confidence report once per year telling them where their water comes from and whether it meets federal standards.

Bottled water, by contrast, is considered a food product and regulated by theFood and Drug Administration (FDA). Under FDA rules,bottled waterdoesn’t usually have to state what source it comes from or what methods were used to treat it. A 2009 investigation by the U.S.GovernmentAccountability Officefound that only “a small percentage” of all bottled water companies give their customers access tothe same information about their water that municipal water suppliers are required to provide.

The FDA monitors and inspects water bottling plants, but it considers this job a “low priority” and doesn’t do it on any kind of regular schedule.Moreover, if a bottlerfails to meet federal safety standards, it can still sell the water. All it has to do is puta statement on the label, such as “contains excessive bacteria” or “excessively radioactive.” In 1999, theNational Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, tested 1,000 bottles of water from 103 different brands and found that for about one-third of them, at least one sample was over the allowable limits for synthetic organicchemicals, bacteria, or arsenic.

Germsare particularly likely to cause problems in bottled water. As the World Health Organization explains in its2008 Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality, “Some microorganisms that are normally of little or no public health significance may grow to higher levels in bottled water.”Food Safety Newsreports that in June 2015, 14 different brands of bottled water had to be recalled because of possible contamination with E. coli bacteria.

Fortunately, no one was sickened by this water, but problems with bottled water aren’t always caught in time. TheCenters for Disease Control and Preventionlists 14 outbreaks of acute gastrointestinal illness caused by bottled water between 1973 and 2010.

Sustainability

When it comes to taste and safety, bottled water isn’tnecessarily worse than tap water – itjust isn’t better. However, when it comes to its environmental impact, tap water is definitely far greener.

The environmental costs of bottled water include the following:

• Water Scarcity. Fiji Water isn’t the only brand that comes from a place where water resources are limited. Many American brands get their water from drought-riddenCalifornia.ArrowheadandCrystal Geysertap natural springs in the California mountains, while Aquafina and Dasani draw onthe municipal water supply in California cities, according to an investigation byThe Desert Sun. In fact, TheDesert Sun reports that Nestle Waters North America getsits Arrowhead water froma spring in the San Bernadino National Forest using a permit that officially expired in 1988. To add insult to injury, the companies use still more water in the manufacturing process. A representative of the Coca-Cola company admitted toMother Jonesthat its plants use 1.63 liters of water for every liter of bottled beverages they produce in California – including Dasani bottled water.
• Toxic Chemicals.Most water bottles are made from a kind of plastic calledpolyethylene terephthalate, or PET. Manufacturing this type of plastic produces a variety of toxic chemicals into the air, including nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide, and benzene. According to a report by theBerkeley Plastics Task Force,making a 16-ounce bottle out of PET createsmore than100 times as much air and water pollution asmaking the bottle out of glass. Worse still, some of thetoxic chemicals in the plasticcan leach out over time into the water inside – particularly if the bottle is rinsed and reused.
• Energy Use. Bottledwater uses energy at every stage of production: treating the water, manufacturing the bottles, filling them, shipping them, and keeping the water cold. ThePacific Institutecalculated in 2007 that just producing the bottles for the bottled water Americans drink used the equivalent of more than17 million barrels of oil.A 2009Pacific Institutereport, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters, concludes that across its entire life cycle, bottled water takes anywhere from 1,100 to 2,000 times as muchenergy to produce astap water.
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Anything that uses fossil fuels also creates greenhouse gases. The Pacific Institute estimates that the manufacturingof plastic water bottles aloneproducedmore than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006 – not even counting the emissions from shipping the bottles. According to theEPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, that gives water bottles acarbon footprintequal to more than half a million passenger vehicles.
• Packaging Waste. ThePacific Institutecalculates thatabout 3.8 million tons of PET are used each year to make water bottles – andonly about 31% of that PET gets recycled, according to a2012 EPA fact sheet.The rest ends up in landfills or gets burned (releasing toxic chemicals such as dioxin in the process), orsimplygets tossed aside as litter. Many discarded plastic bottles eventually make their way into the oceans, where they can prove deadly to fish, seabirds, and other creatures that swallow them.