Many brands of bottled water use carefully chosen names and visuals to evoke imagery of a babbling brook or crystal-clear spring deep in the untouched mountains of some faraway countryside. While many brands do bottle their water at sources consistent with their messaging, others are simply selling you tap water at a cost 30 times what you would pay by drinking your water at home.
Brands like Arrowhead and Crystal Geyser use spring water, while brands like Dasani and Aquafina use purified municipal water. Of course, where the water comes from geographically is also concerned. As this map from Mother Jones demonstrates, during the height of the drought that crippled California most of the big brands bottled their water from sources in the quenched state.
Most of the brands are aware of the potential for backlash associated with bottling water from a state in constant drought or near-drought conditions. The reason why so many brands opt to use California as the source of their water is convenience — most company headquarters and facilities are located in California, making it easier for companies to continue bottling there.
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Shop Contact. Table of Contents. Overview Manufacturing bottled water requires the filtration of compressed air, liquid and steam. Looking for more? Find filters and parts directly online. At one level down from federal regulation, which only affects water that travels between states, there is state regulation of the industry. Many states have bottled-water regulations that are stricter than the FDA's, requiring bottled-water companies to obtain a yearly license and submit to regular inspection of water sources and treatment facilities.
Some states don't regulate bottled water at all. By far the tightest regulating body overseeing the bottled-water industry is the industry itself, most notably in the form of the International Bottled Water Association IBWA.
The IBWA enforces voluntary self-regulation of its members, who produce about 80 percent of the bottled water purchased in the United States. IBWA members must meet the requirements set forth in the IBWA Model Code, which includes disinfection in the form of reverse osmosis, filtration or distillation for any water drawn from a municipal drinking water source.
Companies using protected, natural sources are not required to disinfect the water. IBWA members must also submit to an unannounced facility inspection once a year by a third-party organization. One independent group that tests bottled water for quality and compliance is the National Sanitation Foundation NSF , which runs a voluntary Bottled Water Certification Program that includes water-source and plant inspection and the testing of both water for contaminants and container-sealing processes.
You probably noticed a few things in the above discussion of regulations. For one thing, the FDA's and the states' regulations are the only ones that are not voluntary, and some states don't have regulations.
So that leaves the FDA. And the FDA's regulations are based on the premise that bottled water is not a potential risk to public health.
These are a couple of the points that contribute to the controversy surrounding bottled water. In the next section, we'll take a closer look at the issues. Some people have questioned whether it's safe to store water or any food product in a plastic container. While a widespread e-mail claimed that freezing water in plastic bottles causes chemicals from the plastic to leach into the water, in fact the opposite is true: If anything, freezing would prevent the leaching of chemicals.
It's heating that could possibly lead to problems, and even that is under debate. Some sources, like Grist Magazine's Umbra Fisk no scientific credentials listed , question the safety of plastics 7 polycarbonate , 3 PVC and 6 polystyrene in the use of food or beverage storage, regardless of temperature. Richard E. Barrans Jr.
To quote Dr. Barrans, "The chance of being injured by a car as you are on your way to the store to buy bottled water is much, much greater than the chance that your health will be impaired by drinking water from a plastic container" [ref].
And Dr. He explains that a group of chemicals called phthalates may be added to certain plastics -- primarily PVC -- to increase their flexibility. If you heat up a water bottle that has phthalates in it, the bottle could leach some of those chemicals into the water. Studies on rodents have shown that ingesting a whole lot of phthalates can lead to various health problems, including liver and kidney damage.
So what's the conclusion? Don't leave your PVC water bottle in the car on a hot summer day and then drink from it when you return to the car a couple of hours later, and you should be fine. If we re-examine the top reasons people give for drinking bottled water instead of tap water -- taste, purity and healthiness -- the controversies start to become obvious.
While the FDA prohibits bottled-water manufacturers from implying that their water is "safer" or "purer" than any other kind of water, implications are a difficult thing to quantify. In any event, many bottled-water drinkers believe they are drinking something that is healthier than tap water. In reality, all water is "healthy" as long as it doesn't possess high levels of harmful contaminants, which tap water does not.
The lab tested for contaminants that can cause illness, like E. The results showed no difference whatsoever, in terms of unhealthy contaminants, between the bottled waters and the tap water.
So perhaps it's a matter of semantics, but the issue seems to be more one of purity than of healthiness: Some bottled waters do contain fewer total dissolved solids than tap water, but most scientists agree that the levels of dissolved solids in tap water are not harmful to human health.
And when it comes to dissolved solids, in certain cases and in some opinions, more is actually more. People who drink mineral water presumably are drinking it because they believe the higher mineral count in the water is beneficial to their health. In the case of mineral water, it may just be that the water is healthier than tap water.
On the other hand, an interesting point to note is that many cities add fluoride to their water if it doesn't naturally contain the American Dental Association recommended amount 0. So people who don't drink tap water may be getting less fluoride than people who do. Dentists warn that this may lead to more dental problems in the long run for people who only drink bottled water that doesn't contain any or enough fluoride some bottled waters leave the fluoride in or add it as a beneficial mineral after processing.
Of course, the healthiness of fluoride-enriched water is forever under debate, so "healthiness" ends up being a somewhat subjective quality. Purity, on the other hand, can be quantified. If someone is looking for purity , choosing purified water may deliver the goods. With an industry standard of fewer than 10 ppm of total dissolved solids, purified water is pretty close to plain H On the other hand, if someone defines "pure" as "safe," we're right back to the healthiness issue discussed above.
Bottled water sources are typically tested for harmful contaminants once a week at most. Municipal water supplies are tested hundreds of times every month. Tap water may not be perfectly clear, or it may have a slight chlorine aftertaste, but according to the Minnesota Department of Health, those are merely aesthetic qualities that do not indicate the water is unsafe.
By federal law, the FDA regulations governing the safety and quality of bottled water are as stringent as the EPA standards for tap water.
And, in some very important cases like lead, bottled water regulations are substantially more stringent. Learn more about the FDA regulations that govern bottled water. On a gallon-for-gallon basis, bottled water is tested up to 36 times more frequently than tap water for nearly all of the same contaminants. With regard to daily testing, there are subtle differences between testing at a bottled water plant and a public water system PWS treatment plant.
Bottled water facilities use water from protected underground sources, such as springs or artesian aquifers, as well as from PWS. Both bottled water and PWS plants typically test more frequently than the minimum number of samples required each month by respective FDA and EPA regulations, often on an hourly basis.
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