Bottled Water

"Many bottles of water are sold with pretty mountains on the label, with evocative names that suggest it comes from a pristine mountain stream, when in fact many bottles of water come from city tap water," said Erick Olson, leader of a National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) four-year study of the bottled water industry.

"Bottled water has a huge marketing campaign to try to persuade the public that it's cleaner and purer and safer than tap water, and that is why the market has just exploded in the last ten years." Indeed, a report from the Beverage Marketing Corporation says consumption has surged to 22.6 gallons per person per year now, and has doubled in a decade. According to a May 2004 news story from ABC News, bottled water has become an $8.3 billion business, with the market growing by 7-10 percent a year.

Over half of all Americans drink bottled water, spending 240-10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they do for tap water, a trend largely fueled by the misconception that bottled water is safer or healthier than tap water. Even the Federal agency that regulated bottled water quality, the FDA, says no, "Companies who market bottled water as being safer than tap water are defrauding the American public." It has also become a target of the environmental community due to the massive amounts of plastic bottles being disposed of from bottled water use.

The truth is that bottled water is only required to be "as good as" tap water. There are no assurances or requirements that bottled be of any higher quality than tap water, and according to some recent studies, it may often be of lower quality. And the Federal guidelines that govern bottled water quality only apply if it is transported across states lines. Sixty to seventy percent of all bottled waters are sold in the same state as they are produced to avoid regulation.

Pristine settings such as a natural springs are favorite sources but spring water may contain natural minerals (natural mineral water) or be carbonated (natural carbonated water). Bottled water receives some type of treatment in a bottling facility. At a minimum bottle water is filtered and disinfected. Each company producing bottled water is free to process the water as it sees fit, subject to FDA oversight, when applicable.In almost all cases, a form of ozonation disinfection is used, and no residual chlorine is added. Usually the bottle is sealed while ozone is still present in the water, but ozone soon dissipates. The bottled water industry has experienced recalls from the shelves of supermarkets for bacterial contamination, chemical contamination and taste and odor problems, such as plastic tastes.

Bacterial regrowth can occur, and bacteria can often be cultured from bottled water. People are voting with their purses and wallets when they buy bottled water. The common preference for bottled water seems aesthetically based: better taste and less odor, especially from chlorine.

In 1999 the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report called "Bottled Water. Pure Drink or Pure Hype?" and petitioned the FDA for improvements in their bottled
water regulation program. The changes called for would simply require that the FDA's bottled water rules be "no less stringent: than EPA's tap water guidelines" and "no less protective of public health."

The report also focuses on the fact that sixty to seventy percent of all bottled water sold in the U.S. is exempt from FDA's bottled water standards, because the federal standards do not apply to water bottled and sold within the same state. Only water that is transported across a state line is required to meet federal standards. Also, all carbonated or sparkling waters are completely exempt from FDA guidelines that set specific contamination limits.

According to the NRDC study of 1,000 bottles of 103 different brands of bottled water obtained from six states, one third (33%) of the brands tested had at least one contaminant that exceeded federal standards.

According to the NRDC report, bottlers are not required to disclose contaminants known to be in their products. Additionally, they state that "even when bottled waters are covered by FDA's specifi c bottled water standards, those rules are weaker in many ways than EPA rules that apply to big city tap water." For example, if EPA regulations for tap water are compared to FDA's bottled water rules:

City tap water can have no confirmed E.coli or fecal coliform bacteria. FDA bottled water rules include no such prohibition (a certain amount of any type of coliform bacteria is allowed in bottled water).
City tap water, from surface water, must be fi ltered and disinfected. In contrast, there are no federal fi ltration or disinfection requirements for bottled water.
Most cities using surface water have had to test for Cryptosporidium or Giardia, two common water pathogens that can cause intestinal problems, yet bottled water companies do not have to do this.
City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals, such as phthalate (a chemical than can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles) some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from the regulations regarding these chemicals.
City water systems must issue annual "right to know" reports, telling consumers what is in their water. Bottlers successfully killed a "right to know" requirement for bottled water.

The NRDC report concludes that while we may choose to use bottled water for convenience, taste or as an alternative to contaminated tap water; it is no longterm solution to our water problems. Bottled water is sometimes contaminated, and we don't use it to bath or shower-major routes of exposure for some tap water contaminants. A major shift to bottled water could undermine funding for tap water protection, raising serious equity issues for the poor. Manufacture and shipping of billions of bottles causes unnecessary energy and petroleum consumption, leads to landfi lling or incineration of bottles and can release environmental toxins. The long-term solution to our water problems is to fi x our tap water so it is safe for everyone; and tastes and smells good.

These are only some of the findings of the four-year study. The entire report can be found at http:// nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp.

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Points Of Interest

For more reading on bottled water, visit the Bottled Water Association.