Why Choosing Tap Water over Bottled Water is Better for Your Health, Your Pocketbook, and the Environment

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• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Purity Myth Bags Millions for Bottlers
• Melting the Myth of Purity: The Scoop on Bottled Water
• A Light Regulatory Path for Bottled Water
• Reality Check: Tap Water is Healthy, Safe, and Monitored
• The Inequity: Removing, Bottling, and Selling Water that Communities Need
• Environmental Implications: Producing Plastic, Transporting Billions of Bottles, and Changing the Climate
• Giving Up Bottled Water is Not Enough
• Conclusion and Recommendations
• Recommendations to Consumers
• Recommendations to Congress

Executive Summary

American consumers drink more bottled water every year, in part because they think it is somehow safer or better than tap water. They collectively spend hundreds or thousands of dollars more per gallon for water in a plastic bottle than they would for the H₂0 flowing from their taps.

Rather than buying into this myth of purity in a bottle, consumers should drink from the tap. Bottled water generally is no cleaner, or safer, or healthier than tap water. In fact, the federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing and monitoring of municipal drinking water.

In some cases, beverage companies use misleading labels, including marketing bottled tap water as spring water. In fact, as much as 40 percent of bottled water is bottled tap water.

Furthermore, the production of bottled water causes many equity, public health, and environmental problems. The big beverage companies often take water from municipal or underground sources that local people depend on for drinking water. Producing the plastic bottles uses energy and emits toxic chemicals. Transporting the bottled water across hundreds or thousands of miles spews carbon dioxide into the air, complicating our efforts to combat global climate change. And in the end, empty bottles are piling up in landfills.

But just kicking the bottle in favor of the tap is not enough. Our nation’s public water and sewer infrastructure is old and in the coming years will need billions of dollars of investment to maintain and further improve treatment, storage, and distribution. Unfortunately, most states and communities are strapped for cash. Each year we fall more than $20 billion short of what is needed to maintain our public water and sewage systems. This is why Congress should establish a clean water trust fund that would give communities the financial help they need to invest in healthy and safe drinking water for every American and for future generations.

Take Back the Tap: Why Choosing Tap Water over Bottled Water is Better for Your Health, Your Pocketbook, and the Environment, will educate consumers about the various problems with bottled water and why they should switch to tap water. This report will also illustrate the importance of supporting local water utilities through increased federal funding.

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Introduction

Consumers are wasting hundreds and thousands of dollars on bottled water because they think it is healthier or safer than its counterpart from the tap. It is not. Tap water is safe and highly regulated and monitored.

In addition to being no purer than tap water and a big waste of money, the production and distribution of bottled water causes a host of equity and environmental problems.

Along with consumers cutting back on, or, better yet, giving up bottled water, Congress should create a clean water trust fund that will give communities across America the resources they need to invest in pure, clean, and healthy drinking water and sewage systems.

 Purity Myth Bags Millions for Bottlers

Americans are drinking a lot of bottled water: 8.3 billion gallons –– about 26 gallons per person –– in 2006. And they are spending a lot of money for this myth of purity packed in plastic. In 2005, consumers shelled out more than $8.8 billion for almost 7.2 billion gallons of non–sparkling bottled water. That was some $850 million more than they paid for 6.4 billion gallons in 2004.¹

Pepsi’s Aquafina brand, which is nothing more than tap water further purified, registered $425.7 million in sales in 2005, followed by Coca–Cola’s Dasani bottled tap water with a sales tally of $346.1 million. Meanwhile, Nestlé’s Poland Spring brand, which does come from spring sources, rang up sales of $199.7 million.¹ That all pencils out to bottled water costing consumers 240 to 10,000 times more per gallon than tap water that is as good, or better, and far more monitored.²

Swiss food and beverage giant Nestlé, Coca–Cola, and PepsiCo are profiting off the notion that bottled water is purer than tap water.

Although the federal government attempted to deal with misleading labels in 1995, the practice of marketing bottled tap water with labels that give the impression it cascaded from a mountain spring continues. In fact, as much as 40 percent of bottled water is nothing more than the tap variety.²

This industry “…takes a free liquid that falls from the sky and sells it for as much as four times what we pay for gas,” Indiana University anthropology professor and bottled water expert Richard Wilk told the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2007. “There’s almost nowhere in America where the drinking water isn’t adequate. Municipalities spend billions of dollars bringing clean, cheap water to people’s homes. But many of us would still rather buy it at a store.” ³

Indeed, Fortune magazine writer Marc Gunther paid $1.57 for a 20–ounce bottle of Aquafina, Pepsi’s bottled tap water, and spent $3.05 for one gallon (128 ounces) of gas.⁴ A bit of math shows that his bottled water bill amounted to $10.05 per gallon: big profits for the bottlers. By comparison, most Americans pay about $2 per 1,000 gallons for municipal water service.⁵

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s groundbreaking 1999 report, Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?, a $1.50 bottle of water generates a profit of about $0.50. Leaving out the cost of the water, this means that bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing, and other expenses account for the lion’s share of the company’s costs.2 One should note that those are internal –– what the company bears. They do not include the external economic, social, and environmental costs that society must pay, such as loss of groundwater, toxic emissions from plastic production and destruction, air pollution from transporting the products, and the disposal of loads of empty bottles.

“This is an industry that takes a free liquid that falls from the sky and sells it for as much as four times what we pay for gas.”
– Richard Wilk, University of Indiana

In many cases, consumers are spending all that extra money on those billions of gallons of bottled water because they have bought into the beverage industry’s marketing magic that water in a plastic bottle is safer and healthier than tap water. A 2003 Gallup survey commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the safety, testing, and regulation of U.S. drinking water and sewage systems, found that about 74 percent of the 1,000 survey respondents reported that they purchased and drank bottled water; 20 percent drank bottled water exclusively. When asked why they treated (includes boiling and filtering) their tap water or purchased bottled water, 33 percent of respondents cited health and safety concerns. The survey also found that people in their 30s and 40s, and those with higher education levels, were more likely than people in other age groups to drink bottled water than other segments of the population.⁶

In a separate poll, 86 percent of Americans expressed concern about their tap water. Forty-one percent of respondents reported using a water filter, bottled water, or both. About 56 percent of the bottled water drinkers cited safety and health as the primary reason they sought out alternatives to straight tap water.⁷

A third survey, this one a part of NRDC’s report, found that 47 percent of the respondents said they drank bottled water because of what they saw as health and safety problems with tap water.²

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Melting the Myth of Purity: The Scoop on Bottled Water

All these statistics and perceptions might lead one to conclude that all bottled water is clean and pure. It is not. The idea comes from the beverage industry spending millions of dollars a year to advertise and market bottled water as the quintessence of purity.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s study tested 1,000 bottles of 103 bottled water brands for a range of pollutants, including arsenic, microbiological contaminants, and toxic chemicals.²

About one-quarter of the brands tested contained bacterial or chemical contamination in some samples at levels that violated “enforceable state standards or warning levels,” and nearly one-fifth of the tested brands “exceeded state bottled water microbial guidelines in at least some samples.” ²

In one of the report’s highlights, various bottled water companies had been buying water from a Massachusetts commercial spring near a hazardous waste site. Samples taken from the spring contained chemicals that likely cause cancer in humans.² (The water is now used to fill swimming pools.⁸)

The study also found man–made chemicals, usually at levels below applicable state and federal standards, in about one–fifth of the brands. However, one sample contained a chemical commonly known as DEHP at higher levels than the federal government allows in tap water. DEHP is part of a chemical group called phthalate (see more on phthalates), which is used to produce plastic, including the ubiquitous disposable 20–ounce plastic water bottles made with polyethylene terephthalate (PET, also readily identified with the numeral 1 on the bottom of the bottle). These chemicals are potential human cancer agents⁹ that can leach from the plastic into the water, even under normal conditions. Nonetheless, the federal government’s Food and Drug Administration, charged with overseeing the health and safety of bottled water, has no standard for phthalates, and in fact does not test for them. This is in part because of pressure from the bottled water industry.²

But microbes, synthetic chemicals, and other substances are not the only sources of bottled water contamination. Sometimes the purification process itself produces problems. For example, ozonation is increasingly used to disinfect bottled water. However, the interaction of ozone with bromide, which is harmless, can form bromate, a possible human carcinogen after long–term exposure. In 2006, FDA ordered a recall of several brands of bottled water with bromate levels that exceeded the standard of 10 parts per billion. The agency was only alerted after an independent laboratory discovered bromate levels of 27 parts per billion in the water.¹¹ And in 2004, food safety authorities in the United Kingdom forced Coca–Cola to recall nearly 500,000 bottles of its Dasani brand bottled tap water because of excessive bromate.¹²

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A Light Regulatory Path for Bottled Water

Federal bottled water testing and monitoring regulations are far weaker than those for tap, in part because the Food and Drug Administration regulates bottled water as a food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency monitors tap water under the Safe Drinking Water Act.²

Perpetually under–funded and short–staffed, FDA has a woeful record of protecting consumer health and safety. Examples include the Spring 2007 melamine contamination of pet food, pork and poultry feed, and fishmeal used in aquaculture. And as Food & Water Watch has reported, FDA is physically inspecting less and less imported seafood –– less than two percent of shipments in 2006 –– more and more of which is raised in crowded, filthy industrial fish farms in Asia.¹³ The regulatory reality with bottled water is similar, for the agency has less than one full–time employee devoted to bottled water oversight. The rules apply only to bottled water packaged and sold across state lines, which leaves out the 60 to 70 percent of water bottled and sold within a single state. FDA regulations also exempt carbonated bottled water.²

The bottling companies do not have to test the water after bottling or storage.

For the 30 to 40 percent of bottled water that FDA does regulate, it requires that companies test four empty bottles once every three months for bacterial contamination. They must test a sample of water after filtration and before bottling for bacteria once a week. When it comes to chemical, physical, and radiological contaminants, a sample of water must be checked only once a year. The companies do not have to test the water after bottling or storage.¹⁴

And just because contamination shows up in bottled water that falls under its jurisdiction does not mean FDA will take action. The agency has stated that it may do nothing as long as the bottler clearly states on the label that the product is substandard or contains excessive chemical substances. FDA could take action if the substandard water injured human health, but this is unlikely unless someone reports it.²

Nearly 40 states say they have bottled water laws and regulations, meaning one out of five do not. Some of the state regulations mirror FDA standards, some are more stringent, and some fall far short of ensuring consumer safety.²

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Reality Check: Tap Water is Healthy, Safe, and Monitored

“Every year, our [San Francisco] water is tested more than 100,000 times to ensure that it meets or exceeds water quality standards,” wrote Jared Blumenfeld and Susan Leal in a February 2007 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. They run the city’s Department of the Environment and the Public Utilities Commission, respectively.¹⁵

“Every year, our [San Francisco] water is tested more than 100,000 times to ensure that it meets or exceeds water quality standards.”

With regard to bacteria, EPA requires that water systems serving more than one million residents test 300 water samples per month, while utilities serving three million people or more must collect and test 480 samples monthly, far more often than the once-a-week test for bottled water.¹⁶

Testing frequency for inorganic and organic contaminants, which includes volatile organic compounds (such as benzene, which can leach from gas storage tanks and landfills, or come from a factory) and synthetic organic chemicals ranges from every three months to once a year or longer, depending on a number of factors. Those include whether the water comes from an underground source, or from a surface source, such as a river or lake; the size of the population the system serves; and the utility’s past record of compliance.¹⁷ (For more information on this type of testing, see More on EPA Drinking Water Standards, page 13.)

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The Inequity: Removing, Bottling, and Selling Water that Communities Need

The former chairman of Perrier, now part of Nestlé’s collection of more than 70 global bottled water brands, candidly stated: “It struck me…that all you had to do is take the water out of the ground and then sell it for more than the price of wine, milk, or, for that matter, oil.” ²¹

In Canada, Nestlé recently applied to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment for a 10–year extension on its permit to take water from the underground source of drinking water of the City of Guelph and Wellington County. The company wants to take more than 950,000 gallons per day, 365 days a year over five years. Nestlé already is hauling away almost 300,000 gallons per day of the region’s groundwater to be bottled and sold hundreds or thousands of miles away.²²

“Shouldn’t a multibillion dollar international corporation pay for the water it uses, just like McCloud’s less wealthy residents?”

Nestlé’s water removal projects in Michigan and California have drawn criticism and protests, as well. Opponents charge that the company, whose brand names include Deer Park, Poland Springs, Arrowhead, and Ice Mountain, is harming both the environment by depleting aquifers and other groundwater sources and the local economy by paying too little for the water it takes.

The company extracts some of the water for its Pure Life and Ice Mountain spring water brands from underground sources in Mecosta County, Michigan. In 2002, a state court judge ruled that the removal of the water had harmed community residents and the environment. Three years later, however, the state appeals court reversed the earlier decision and said that Nestlé had a legitimate right to take the water.²³

Nestlé’s thirst also has roiled the waters in northern California. In 2003, it entered into an agreement with the McCloud Community Service District to extract water from the slopes of Mount Shasta. Under the 50–year contract, Nestlé will build a one million–square–foot facility to bottle more than 500 million gallons of local water annually.³

McCloud residents fought the plan, contending that the company paying only $300,000 a year for access to the water would leave the town with only a penny for every 17 gallons. They also emphasized the environmental problems that taking so much water would create. This resonated with a Siskiyou County Superior Court judge who nixed the contract in 2005. However, a state appeals court reinstated the deal in early 2007. That means that unless the deal is challenged before California’s Supreme Court, Nestlé could begin building the plant in 2007.³

The McCloud Watershed Council contends that the contract gives Nestlé preference over the town’s ratepayers because the company could draw the maximum amount of water it wants, regardless of drought or water shortage, and that the local water district bears all the responsibility for the wellbeing of the springs and the water infrastructure.²⁴

“In the contract, Nestlé’s bill for water use is 200 Household Equivalents per month. The average American family uses approximately 400 gallons of water per day. Nestlé will use 1,800 gallons of spring water per day, with access to unlimited groundwater and 8,500 acre–feet annually of water from the McCloud river pipe at Lakin Dam…To appropriately bill Nestlé just for its spring water use, Nestlé would need to pay 4,490 Household Equivalents per month. Shouldn’t a multibillion dollar international corporation pay for the water it uses, just like McCloud’s less wealthy residents?” ²⁵

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Environmental Implications: Producing Plastic, Transporting Billions of Bottles, and Changing the Climate

Making the plastic for all those bottles and transporting the finished product over hundreds or thousands of miles consumes energy, pollutes the environment, and contributes to global warming.

Annual production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet U.S. consumer demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil, not including the cost of transporting the bottled water to consumers. That more or less equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles on U.S. roads each year. Worldwide bottling of water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic each year.²⁶

A 2006 Earth Policy Institute study found that the British bottled water industry annually generates about 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide, which equals the energy consumption of 6,000 homes a year. The institute’s research director said: “Tap water is delivered through an energy–efficient infrastructure. On the other hand, nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national boundaries to reach consumers.” ²⁷

And after the production of billions of plastic bottles and the national and international travel of bottled water, billions of empty bottles remain. About 86 percent of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the garbage instead of being recycled.26 That amounts to about two million tons of PET plastic bottles piling up in U.S. landfills each year. Single serve water bottles and other beverage containers, often used on the go, are recycled at a lower rate than containers typically used at home. The national recycling rate for all PET type #1 plastic fell from 39.7 percent in 1995 to 23.1 percent in 2005.²⁸

Ultimately, many plastic bottles of all types and sizes will be incinerated, which releases toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash laden with heavy metals.²⁶

The production and transport of bottled water products causes pollution and contributes to global warming. However, this resulting climate change in turn could affect underground and surface water (e.g., lakes and rivers) sources in various parts of the world. In 2005, the journal Nature published a study showing how climate change could diminish water sources dependent on melting snow. With warmer periods, earlier snowmelt could mean that “much of the winter runoff will immediately be lost to the oceans” unless we have adequate water storage systems.²⁹ But this, like protecting our water sources from pollution, requires money. It also means halting or severely curbing Nestlé, Coca–Cola, Pepsi, and other commercial bottlers from taking spring water and municipal water to be bottled into easy profits.

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Giving Up Bottled Water is Not Enough

Although the majority of U.S. tap water is clean, safe, and healthy, public water systems in some communities fall short of consistently meeting EPA safety standards. Any issue that involves contamination likely stems from pollution of the water source, inadequate water treatment, or deteriorating infrastructure.

The solutions to these issues are multi–pronged. Federal, state, and local governments must protect the quality and integrity of our water sources. That means full enforcement of the Clean Water Act. It also means we need laws and regulations that prohibit or severely curb industrial agriculture, chemical production, factories, and commercial and residential development near water sources.

Another part of the solution is investing in the maintenance and renewal of municipal water and sewage treatment plants, storage, and distribution. Most of the primary water pipes and sewer lines under our streets –– out of sight, out of mind –– were built during the late 1800s, the 1920s, and in the years immediately following World War II.³⁰ They are wearing out under the weight of age and a growing population. Old, corroded water lines can break, not only wasting water but also opening avenues for contamination. Worn out or overburdened sewage systems can overflow into our streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans, creating serious health concerns.

Sewage overflows are one of the leading causes of beach closures, hurting local wildlife and robbing communities of tourism dollars. In 2005, public health agencies issued more than 20,000 warnings against swimming on U.S. coastal beaches.³¹

The National Research Council recently warned of more water-borne disease outbreaks unless we make “substantial investments” in improving our drinking water and sewage storage and distribution systems.³²

Every year Congress debates proposals for funding clean drinking water. A 2007 bill would provide $14 billion in federal loan guarantees over four years for water and sewer improvements. Unfortunately, even if the legislation were to pass, it would be insufficient.³³

The fact is, our communities fall about $22 billion short annually of what they need to maintain and improve public drinking water and sewage systems. Federal dollars are the only way to address this clean water infrastructure funding gap estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Government Accountability Office, and the non–profit Water Infrastructure Network at between $300 and $500 billion³³ over 20 years. Much of the funding gap stems from government cuts for clean water. While it is true that 2007 legislation potentially would increase funding, successive presidents have requested less money for clean water.

A federal clean water trust fund would provide billions of dollars, year after year, decade after decade, to invest in clean and safe drinking water for every community and every person in the United States. The fairest way to finance such a fund would be for polluters to pay. This might include fees on flushable consumer items, such as toilet paper, increased permitting fees for dumping, and fees on toxics manufacturers, including plastic producers.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

American consumers drink more bottled water every year and spend more money doing it because they think it is safer than tap water.

But this idea of bottled water being pure is a myth. In reality, such water generally is no cleaner, or safer, or healthier than tap water. In fact, the federal government requires far more rigorous safety monitoring of municipal tap water.

The production of bottled water causes significant equity, public health, and environmental problems. These include taking water from communities that depend on it, polluting the environment during the production of plastic, contributing to global warming by transporting bottled water over great distances, and irresponsibly disposing of billions of empty bottles.

But switching from bottled to tap water must also go along with the federal government creating a clean water trust fund to generate the billions of dollars necessary to maintain and improve drinking water and sewage systems.

Recommendations to Consumers

• Choose tap water over bottled water whenever possible.
• Sign the Take Back the Tap pledge.
  
• Support increased funding for public drinking water by signing our petition urging Congress to create a clean water trust fund.
  

Recommendations to Congress

• Pass a clean water trust fund to help communities invest in improving our drinking water and sewage systems.
• Increase Environmental Protection Agency funding for drinking water oversight and for fully enforcing the Clean Water Act to protect against pollution of drinking water sources

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