The United States is the world’s largest consumer of bottled water, purchasing 37 billion bottles in 2005.¹ Our daily bottled water habit is bad for people and bad for the environment.

Bottled water is not safer

The bottled water industry has created a misconception in the United States that bottled water is cleaner, safer, and healthier than tap water. In fact, both regulation and enforcement of bottled water safety is weaker than of tap water safety. Federal, state, and local environmental agencies require rigorous testing of tap water safety. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulates bottled water –– if the water is sold over state lines, meaning up to 70 percent of all bottled water produced and sold within states is exempt from FDA regulation. Most food processing plants are not even inspected once a year and any safety testing of bottled water is performed by the companies themselves.² A landmark study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found approximately one-third of tested bottled water brands violated, in at least one sample, an enforceable standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines. The most common contaminants were arsenic and synthetic organic carcinogens.³

Bottled water is bad for the environment

Bottled water wastes fossil fuels and water in production and transport, and when the water is drunk the bottles become a major source of waste. It takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water bottles for Americans every year. Eliminating those bottles would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.⁴ Each one of those bottles required nearly five times its volume in water to manufacture the plastic ⁵ and may have caused the release of nickel, ethylene oxide, and benzene.⁶ Then, rather than being recycled, 86 percent of them are thrown away.⁷ Breaking down these plastics can take thousands of years, while their components seep into our water supplies.

Bottled water is a waste of money.

American’s spent $10 billion on bottled water in 2005 and paid up to 1,000 times the cost of production, a major windfall of profit for the companies. Bottled water can costs $7.50 to $11.00 per gallon in the supermarket ⁸ but tap water costs most customers only one-tenth of one cent per gallon. What’s more, nearly 40 percent of bottled water is tap water with added minerals or filtration.⁹

Act Now

• Join our campaign to take back the tap by pledging to reduce or eliminate your use of bottled water.
  

• What America really needs is increased funding for public drinking water and water treatment.
  America has some of the safest tap water in the world but many cities operate water systems that were built before World War I. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there is a shortfall of more than $22 billion per year between the funds available for repair and upgrade of pipes and treatment plants and what is needed to keep water safe for human and environmental health.
  
  Support tap water; tell Congress to increase funding to keep America’s water clean and safe.

Footnotes

¹ Gitlitz, J and Franklin, P. “Water, Water Everywhere: The Growth of Non-carbonated Beverages in the United States” Container Recycing Institute. 2006.
² Food & Water Watch Factsheet: Illusions of Purity.
³ Olson, Erik D. et al. “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” Natural Resources Defense Council.
⁴ Blumenfeld, J. and Leal, S. “The real cost of bottled water” San Francisco Chronicle. February 18, 2007.
⁵ TriplePundent.com: Ask Pedro
⁶ “Bottled Water Campaign.” Sierra Club.
⁷ Container Recycling Institute
⁸ Container Recycling Institute
⁹ San Francisco Chronicle