Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says (Update1)

By Rob Waters (Haha!)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a4gqSuLAeFYU


Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bottled water sold in markets and convenience stores may be no more free of pollutants than the water that pours from the kitchen tap at a fraction of the cost, said an environmental group that tested samples.

Ten top-selling brands of bottled water contained a total of 38 pollutants including fertilizer, industrial chemicals, bacteria and the residue of drugs such as Tylenol, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group based in Washington, D.C. The bottled water showed an average of eight pollutants in each sample.

Americans drank more than twice as much bottled water in 2007 as they did in 1997, guzzling 8.8 billion gallons at a cost of $10.3 billion in 2007, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm based in New York. Although commercials often show pristine mountain springs, the reality is that bottled water often comes from city water supplies, said Renee Sharp, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist.

``If you're going to pay 1,500 times more for bottled water than for tap you'd expect that you'd be getting a cleaner, better product,'' said Sharp. ``And that's not necessarily true.''

Public water utilities are required to inform customers about contaminants that may be present in tap water and, in most states, to tell customers where the water comes from and how it's purified. Companies selling bottled water have few similar rules, Sharp said.

California, which has stricter standards than most states, requires companies to disclose whether bottled water comes from municipal water systems and also to warn consumers about contaminants that may pose health risks.

No Assurances

``But even in California, consumers still can't be assured they're getting a better product'' than they could get from their kitchen sink, Sharp said.

Sharp and her colleagues started their research by buying samples of 10 different brands and sending them to an independent laboratory for testing. They noticed that bottles from Wal-Mart's and Giant Food Inc., a supermarket chain owned by Koninklijke Ahold NV of Amsterdam, seemed to bear the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment, Sharp said.

In three samples of Sam's Choice purified drinking water sold at Wal-Mart stores near San Francisco, levels of a group of chemicals known as trihalomethanes exceeded state standards, the report said. These are byproducts of chlorine and other chemicals used to kill microbes and can cause cancer at high doses.

Quality is `Top Priority'

Tests conducted by Wal-Mart and its suppliers don't show ``any reportable amounts of chlorine or chlorine by-products,'' Shannon Frederick, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mail.

``The suppliers of Sam's Choice water regularly test to verify compliance and quality,'' she said. ``Product quality is a top priority at Wal-Mart, and we stand behind the quality of our bottled water.''

Giant Food spokesman Jamie Miller said in an e-mail today the water marketed by the company is produced with ``numerous safety and quality assurance controls, including a filtration process that assures that the quality of the product meets all regulatory standards for safe drinking water in the areas where we operate.''

While Sharp and her colleagues tested eight bottled water brands in addition to those of Wal-Mart and Giant, the report didn't name the others.

The largest producer of bottled water in the U.S., Nestle Waters North America, a unit of Switzerland-based Nestle SA, said today in an e-mailed statement that the environmental group's report was ``false and misleading'' and seeks to ``undermine the integrity of bottled water.''

Multistep Filtration

Water used in Nestle's brands, which include Poland Spring and San Pellegrino, are tested regularly by independent labs and undergo ``multistep filtration,'' said Heidi Paul, the unit's vice president, in the statement.

``Contrary to the EWG's attempt to equate tap water quality with bottled water, our water is held to a higher standard,'' Paul said.

The Environmental Working Group notified Wal-Mart yesterday that it intended to sue the company for violating the terms of California's Proposition 65, a measure passed by voters in 1986. The regulation requires businesses to notify consumers if products they sell contain significant amounts of chemicals known to cause harm.

Wal-Mart's Frederick said she had no comment on the possible lawsuit.

The increased consumption of water sold in disposable plastic bottles also creates serious environmental problems, Sharp said.

`Enormous Environmental Impacts'

``The environmental impacts of bottled water production are enormous in terms of the amount of energy that goes into producing the bottles and shipping them around the country,'' she said. The bottles also clog landfill sites and increasingly pollute oceans, where they endanger marine animals, she said.

While Giant Food's Acadia brand had similar levels of trihalomethanes, the environmental group doesn't plan to sue the chain under the California statute because it doesn't have stores in the state, Sharp said.

The environmental group wants to see stricter, nationwide standards requiring full disclosure of the contaminants in bottled water and urges consumers to switch from bottled water to tap water. People who are concerned about tap water quality can purchase home filtration systems for a small portion of the cost they pay for bottled water, Sharp said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 15, 2008 13:36 EDT

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

yeah, we had that down here as well. Turns out the most popular brand was coming out of some farm well and cost the company about 26 cents per million litres. It was one of the 2 worlds largest soft drink companies.

It costs them this much cents for a pint: 0.000000156

They sell it for $2.60. Excluding freight and other costs. About 16 million % markup.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

I think Poland spring settled a lawsuit a while back about the water they claimed was coming from maine.

Bottled water is a joke..........All that shyt comes from the local reseviour.


T

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

depends on the brand. You have to do some research to make sure you are buying clean water. None of that stuff that comes from the municipal water system(*cough*dasani*cough*).

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

At the lab I work in I have access to distilled, deionized, 2-micron filtered water, or what we call 18 megaohm water 'cause it's electrical resistance is 18.2 M ohm.

I started drinking it instead of sodas and it really does taste different from tap water or bottled water. Now I drink 5 or 6 16-oz bottles of it a day.

Now I just need to get some large storage containers and fill em up for preps!

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Why am I hearing.... "drink the Flouride and Chlorine... drink the Flouride..."

Good brands of bottled water are produced using reverse osmosis and are about a million times cleaner than tap water.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

"Bottle water is not better" comes the same folks who say "fluoridated tap water is good for you."

Dasani, Aquafina, and other crap brands are indeed no better, since they are just tap water run through a filter.

But genuine spring waters are always better than tap water.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

CCA produce Pump water which should be nice and clean as it is probably also used as feedstock for their Coke products, and is likely available world-wide, albiet under different brands. I drink this when I'm out and about, but it is expensive as bottled water goes. I like the flavour of the different types they have and it is far better than drinking some sugar-laden soft drink.

Bottled water should be drunk in short order as it doesn't have chlorine etc. in it, so it is a viable medium for bacteria to reproduce once opened and contaminated if you like.

Otherwise I drink a local carbonated mineral water. Which is probably not so good, but I feel refreshed anyway, and it is clean enough and importantly without added chlorine or flouride. That brand is an Australian brand called Deep Spring and is nice and cheap, and has different flavours also.

Tap water tends to get boiled and used for cooking here.

Finally I have a simple Kambrook 1.25L gravity fed water filter at home that I use, it works really well and after filtering I can add Gatorade if necessary to it. Each filter lasts about 200L or so, and they are cheap. :P

After drinking bottled water for a while, I cannot bring myself to drink tap water unless desperate, the metallic/salt taste really puts me off, not to mention the other stuff I know is in there...

HTH

:wink:

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Purified water is usualy just filtered tap water from whatever local source the plant is attachted to. If you are going to drink bottled water, at least get a good brand of SPRING water.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

How does one know the difference between "crap brands" and "genuine spring waters"?

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Top of the line: Ice Age (in the cobalt blue bottle) -

http://www.iceagewater.com/ and http://www.iceagewater.com/WATER%20A...20ANALYSIS.pdf

Good quality and tasting, but not "gourmet": Crystal Geyser, available at Trader Joe's for less than 50 cents/bottle as Trader Joe's brand. CG is REAL spring water, not RO/filtered treated sewage like Dasani.

My previous favorite, currently unavailable due to idiotic property issues:

Trinity Springs, with natural fluoride above FDA limits, so they had to call it "Natural Mineral Supplement" instead of "Spring Water" -

http://www.trinitysprings.com/produc...t.asp?page=nms

Also good choices: Hawaii, Oregon Rain (literally rainwater), Voss, Speyside Glenlivet, pretty much any genuine glacial brands.

You can get the "gourmet" brands at BevMo, Cost Plus, and via AquaMaestro (the latter if money is no object): http://www.aquamaestro.com/

Some of the most disgusting shit is Evian, and Fiji only slightly less desirable. Water purity on both is fine, but the taste is not fine.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

Source listed, lab analysis and taste.

Artificial (filtered tap) waters cannot be made to taste like natural spring waters. They just have that "fake" taste...engineered taste like most processed foods.

The source should be specific and honest: "from a protected source" is not specific and honest (it usually means "from the municipal water supply behind a locked gate").

Lab analyses (by reputable, independent, and competent labs) should be offered by all reputable bottlers.

Taste is the best determinant; for us water connoisseurs, we can distinguish between a fine water and treated sewage as easily as wine connoisseurs distinguish between fine wine and pisswater in a corked bottle.


PS: on a related issue, "sea salt" is often as fraudulent as many bottled waters. If the sea salt you use doesn't abide by the three criteria above, assume it's distilled San Francisco Bay water or similar (seriously, one major salt company was marketing that as "sea salt"). Real sea salt is very particular about source location and it should be sun-dried and raked.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

as a master plumber and someone who used to install and maintain water mains, i would NEVER put water straight out of a tap in my MOUTH. nuf said....

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

:haha:

:bear_thumb:

And they say blue collar people aren't smart?

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

I dunno about drinking that William. Very high purity DI water (or distilled H2O) will leach minerals from your system.

My take on the bottled versus municipal water; water samples taken right at the treatment plant would vary substantially against what we get at home, after running through ancient water mains with all kinds of $hit lining the pipes.

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

And as someone that has run a municipal DW system, I second that motion.

Tap water largely depends on the source, the plant and the operator.
I would rather drink sewage run through DI than tap water.
I get poland spring, It contains no detectable fluoride, chloramines or trihalomethanes, and that is confirmed by my own analysis.
Any bottled water that says on the label that it has been treated with reverse osmosis should be good.

Hey Peasant, ever work on a main at the end of the line? Nice stuff huh, those people that live on the end of the road have no idea what is in their mains.:puke:

Re: Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water, Group Says
 

in atlanta some of the water mains are 90 years old or older those are nastier than a sewer pipe when you cut them open.