Bottled Water

Bottled water is now the largest beverage category by volume in the US. Food & Water Watch explains that 64 percent of bottled water comes from municipal tap water sources, sometimes further treated and sometimes not.


The plastic that seals bottled water uses petroleum, which raises environmental concerns and causes a negative environmental impact. Discarded one-time-use plastic water bottles turn up everywhere and are more negative than plastic straws. The plastic used to make single-use water bottles also contains chemicals called endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A. BPA and other endocrine disruptors alter the way the body makes and uses certain hormones, which could have negative health consequences.

Water vs. Soda

Bottled water took over carbonated soft drinks as Americans' favorite drink during 2016 for the first time ever, according to Beverage Marketing, a research and consulting company. US consumers bought 12.8 billion gallons of bottled water versus 12.4 billion gallons of carbonated soft drinks. This once again shows the power of advertising.


Marketers have convinced people to purchase something that is natural, almost universally available, and mostly free vs. something that is artificially created in a lab. In some places water has a higher price than soft drinks. I have this pet rock. . .

Bottled Water Sources

Companies are not required to publicly disclose exactly where their sources of collection are. Ironically, most US bottled water comes from (drought stricken) California. Almost all US tap water is better regulated and monitored than bottled water is.

Purified water is a different story. It is usually produced by distillation, de-ionization or reverse osmosis. This water can originate from either the tap or from ground water. Often labeled "purified" or drinking water," this processed water often has minerals added to it to give it taste.

There are more than 3,600 brands of bottled water available. Many now come packed with vitamins, minerals, probiotics,  flavors, and natural and artificial sweeteners.

The various types of bottled water are sourced from:

• Well water (water found underground that is trapped by rocks or sand)
• Spring water (collected at the source of a spring)
• Groundwater (mineral water contains natural minerals dissolved from the source)
• Distilled water (collected from the steam of boiled water)
• Purified water (water from anywhere, but it is treated to remove chemicals).

About 55 percent of bottled water in the United States is spring water, including Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead.
Evian, Perrier, and Vittel come from natural springs in France. FIJI Water comes from a source in the Yaqara Valley of Viti Levu, one of Fiji’s two principal islands, and is now the number one imported bottled water in the United States. San Pellegrino comes from mountain springs in Italy. Mountain Valley Spring Water comes from Arkansas. Saratoga springs comes from New York and is injected with additional carbonation during bottling. Everest water comes from Texas, Glacier Mountain comes from Ohio, and only about a third of Poland Springs water comes from the actual Poland Spring, in Maine.

Aquafina and Dasani use tap water and treat it. In fact, Aquafina, was recently forced to change their labels to reflect the true source of their water: Public Water Source, in other words, tap water. Coca-Cola bottling plants, which produce Dasani, use 1.63 liters of water for every liter of beverage produced in California.
The following are bottled water brands who refuse to release the location of their water source.

    Big Y Natural Spring Water
    Cool Springs Purified Drinking Water
    Crystal Clear Bottled Water Purified Drinking Water
    Deja Blue Purified Drinking Water
    Floravita 2000 Super Aqua Ultrapure Premium Water
    H20m Natural Spring Water
    Kroger Distilled Water
    Nursery Purified Water
    Publix Drinking Water
    Simply H20
    Smart Sense Purified Water
    Sunnyside Farms Purified Water
    Trader Joe’s Electrolyte Enhanced Water
    Vintage Natural Spring Water
    Voss Artisian Water
    Whole Foods Italian Still Mineral Water
    365 Everday Value Spring Water
The International Bottled Water Association lists more than 20 brands of bottled water that contain fluoride. A few of the brands are Arrowhead, Deer Park, Hinkley Springs, Nursery Water, Ozarka, and more. DS Services and Nestle Waters North America are the most common manufacturers listed.
A new type, Alkaline water, also called ionized water has claimed health benefits. However, researchers have not yet verified claims that alkaline water can cure illnesses or prevent certain conditions. Most doctors agree more studies are needed.


The consensus between the two main water quality regulating groups EPA and EWG, and health research is that bottled water is inferior in quality to tap water. This is due to the extreme filtering process and type of disinfection used.

How Much Water

Speaking of hydration, North American companies use 1.39 liters of water to make one liter of bottled water. That is less than the global averages of a liter of soda, which requires 2.02 liters of water. A liter of beer needs 4 liters of water, wine needs 4.74 liters. Hard alcohol guzzles 34.55 liters of water for every liter.

Bottled Water

Here is an interesting video about bottled water. It is not kind to bottled water producers. One fact says that it takes enough oil to produce the bottles that could be used to make gas to fuel a million cars a year. One of the few times water is not good for the environment.  LINK 

Bottled Water Causes Cavities

That's a headline I recently read. The reason shown was that those who drink only bottled and filtered water do not get the fluoride that is in tap water. Governments began adding fluoride in water in the 1940s and incidents of cavities dropped almost by half. Lately, some researchers have concluded that their might be too much fluoride in water and are discussing the appropriate amounts to be added. Seems like another unintended consequence of the green movement.

Speaking of Nutrition

Bottled water companies are notoriously loathe to provide any information on their labels, other than saying the bottle contains water. This site LINK shows what follow-up calls from the 'Environmental Working Group' to various makers of bottled water phone numbers as listed on the labels. I will sum it up for those who don't have time to read the details. No Information, Nothing, Zip, Nada, Zero, Bupkus - Seems like a whole bunch of deception to me.

Top Three Markups

According to Reader's Digest, here are the largest markups for the things we buy.

Bottled water: 4,000 percent markup - Come on, it's just water

Text messages: 6,000 percent markup.  A typical text message costs you 20 cents and the phone company 0.3 cents to transmit.

Movie theater popcorn: 1,275 percent markup - Lots of greasy phony butter and salt makes up for it

Bottled Water

The smug greenies have done it to themselves again. Many folks are back to opting for  tap water, or filtered tap water, because of the nasty environmental effects of producing and shipping bottled waters and the cleanup of the bottles themselves.

An increasing number of restaurants are offering only filtered tap water to customers these days. Mario Batali (from TV fame) stopped selling bottled water at his New York City restaurants in 2009, and eateries in Florida and Massachusetts are also serving only tap.

New York is the 11th state to require a bottled-water deposit, and the list is expected to grow. Americans last year threw away an estimated 2.5 million bottles an hour, according to data provided by the Clean Air Council.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors voted in June, 2009 to recommend that City Halls stop serving bottled water even at special functions. I always said bottled water was the pet rock of the decade, now it looks like some folks are beginning to agree with me.

Bottled Water

I was wondering why bottled water has a “drink by” date on it when common sense dictates that water doesn’t go bad, so I went out searching.

You can thank New Jersey, which passed a law in 1987 that required all food products sold there to display an expiration date of two years or less from the date of manufacture. Labeling, separating, and shipping batches of expiration-dated water to Jersey alone, was inefficient for bottled water producers, so most of them started giving every bottle a two-year expiration date, no matter where it was shipped to. Maybe that's also where Pepsi had inspiration for its "freshness date."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has never established a limitation on the shelf life of bottled water and even though the NJ law was amended a few years ago it has been an industry norm for so long that many producers haven't bothered to change.

Unopened bottled water may not do you any harm, but it isn’t going to get better with age. The plastic that water is packaged in, usually polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for retail bottles and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for water cooler jugs, is slightly porous, so the water can pick up smells and tastes from the outside world. Keep a case in your garage for a while and your water might end up with a slick oil finish. Mmmm, bottled water - the pet rock of a new generation.