When bottled water first hit stores a lot of us thought ‘why would I pay for water?’ But now bottled water is a huge industry and the primary drinking water source for many. A big factor is the perceived purity of bottled water over tap water. In a four-year review of the bottled water industry and its safety standards conducted by the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), they concluded that there was no assurance that bottled water was any cleaner or safer than tap water. And in fact, an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle — sometimes further treated, sometimes not.
How can you tell that the water you’re buying isn’t just tap water? If anywhere on the label or cap you read “from a municipal source” or from a “community water system” it means it’s derived from tap water, but may have been further treated, which is impossible to tell. Bottled water is actually held to less stringent testing and requirements than city water, because bottled water is regulated by the FDA while municipal water is regulated by the EPA. Many bottling companies belong to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), the industry’s trade association, which has adopted stricter codes than the FDA requirements; however even among IBWA members these codes and inspection programs are voluntary.
To tell if you tap water is safe, call your home water utility company and ask for a copy of its annual water quality report. Then get the brochure called “Making Sense of Your Right to Know Report,” from the Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water (www.safe-drinking-water.org/rtk.html). However you may not be able to test your water quality against the bottled water you buy because bottled water sources are not required to make their water quality reports known to the public. If you choose to drink bottled water at home you could be spending up to 10,000 times as much per gallon.
Until some changes are made in how the bottled water industry is regulated it is impossible to know if it is cleaner than your tape water without paying for water testing at a state-certified drinking water laboratory. If, in the ‘right-to-know’ report from your water utility, you do find reason to be concerned water filters are a good option. And by filtering you own water to use in refillable containers you’ll help cut down on the thousands of plastic bottles that end up in landfills. According to the NRDC, consumers should look for filters labeled at meeting NFC/ANSI standard 53 and that are certified to remove the containment(s) of concern in your water.
While it is good to be concerned about the quality of the water you drink, you are still using tap water for cooking, showering, cleaning dishes, and brushing your teeth among other things. The real answer is to demand higher standards from your local water sources so that everyone in the community has access to clean water instead of just those who can afford to pay more for bottled water and filtration systems.
Sources:
NRDC: Bottled Water. Pure Drink or Pure Hype?http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/chap1.asp . (Retrieved May 9, 2007).
NRDC: Consumer Guide to Water Filters http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/gfilters.asp . (Retrieved May 9, 2007)
