What's in a bottle of water
Where does all that bottled water come from? And is it safer than tap water?
Water has been a common resource shared by all until recently. Now large corporations are privatizing water all over the world. They bottle the water and sell it back to us at an amazing rate hundreds or even a thousand times more that tap water costs. Bottlers extract large amounts of water from aquifers and springs, potentially drying up wells and even wetlands. Taking the water from communities living near the source affects access to drinking water, farming, and ecosystems in the area.
Bottled water advertising leads us to believe that bottled water is healthier than tap water. But bottled water is much less regulated than tap water. Studies show that bottled water in no safer than tap water. It may even contain elevated levels of arsenic, bacteria and other contaminants.
According to "Think Outside the Bottle" a campaign to increase awareness of the bottled water industry, making bottles to meet the demand for bottled water required more than 17 million barrels of oil last year.
The Think Outside the Bottle campaign is calling on large corporate bottlers to: Reveal the sources and sites of the water used for bottling; publicly report breaches in bottled water quality, comparable to reports by public water systems; and to stop threatening local control of water when siting and operating bottled water plants.
The most important thing you can do to protect water resources from bottling is to stop buying bottled water. If you are concerned about the quality of your tap water, install a filter and use reusable glass or stainless still containers when you carry water with you.