Bottled Water: Tapping the Truth - Part 1

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Do you buy and drink a lot of bottled water? I often grab it because it’s handy. Have you ever wondered if it’s worth the money? Is bottled water really healthier, safer and better tasting?

Here are some tidbits of information that you might not have heard. Many companies tap local water supplies…yes the same water your drink in your kitchen…for their bottled water. It may be treated but it’s from the tap. Statistics from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) suggest that 40% of all bottled water is actually treated tap water.

Is bottled water safe just because it’s bottled? Not necessarily. It all depends on the source of the water, how the water is treated and whether something has happened to taint the water. This may shock you but the regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for bottled water sold nationally are weaker than those from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for city tap water.

A test by the NRDC of over 1000 bottles representing 100 brands of bottled water found one third or over 300 of the bottles to contain some type of contamination from bacteria such as E. Coli to chemicals.

Taste is one of the main reasons that bottled water is so popular. Did you know that when ABC’s 20/20 conducted a taste test between tap and bottled waters, more people preferred tap water? At a cost of about one penny per gallon, tap water looks pretty good when you consider bottled water costs much more.

People started buying bottled water because of concerns over their tap water. Ironically, most tap water may be cleaner than a lot of bottled water. Larger cities tend to have cleaner water than smaller towns although not always. Factors such as industrial pollution, sewage system run off, and contaminated land sites can affect water quality.

How can you know what’s in your local water? Look at your local Water Quality Report which is often available online and mailed out to homeowners yearly as required by law. You can compare the contamination level of your water against the EPA’s enforceable level. Yours, of course, should be below the EPA’s level.

Bottled water is not necessarily a panacea for clean and healthy water. It can certainly be contaminated as can tap water. Your goal is to lower that risk from either source as much as possible. Next week in part two, I’ll give you some easy ways to lower your risk of contamination in both tap and bottled water.