There’s no doubt that drinking from a glossy, plastic water bottle is sexier than refilling a reusable water bottle from the tap. However, the argument that bottled water is safer than tap water is an outdated and inaccurate statement. There is overwhelming evidence that tap water isn’t only just as safe as bottled, but in fact is safer.
The risk that comes with buying bottled water is twofold: regulation and contamination, both of the water and its plastic container. The most recent study on the safety of water was conducted in 1999 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, and concluded that out of 1,000 bottles made up of 103 brands, about a third of the bottles contained bacteria and chemical contaminants higher than industry standards. There have been no major changes in regulation or production since 1999, so the risk that bottled water is somewhat contaminated is still there.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulates tap water while the Food and Drug Administration regulates bottled water. However, the FDA can’t regulate bottles packaged and shipped in the same state, according to Reader’s Digest, which leaves about 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water less regulated than tap water.
Another danger of bottled water is the labels: companies are not required to label where their water source comes from, and 1 out of every 4 water bottle water comes from municipal supply, which is just simply bottled tap water, sold at triple the price of tap water.
Aside from health issues with bottled water, there is the detrimental effect the plastic bottles have on the environment. According to Elizabeth Royte’s 2008 book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, the U.S. public goes through about 50 million bottles of water per year, the majority of which do not get recycled, and is an industry worth over $100 million dollars. Similarly, The National Geographic cites the issue of excessive fossil fuel burning to transport the bottles of water and to make the plastic in the factories, as well as the harm pumping out groundwater causes natural watersheds.
If the lack of effective regulation and catastrophic environmental effects of bottled water is not enough to convince you of its inferiority to tap water, there is one final argument that all people can understand: money.
According to the American Water Works Association, the price of bottled water is nearly 2,000 times as expensive as tap water. While it may not seem like a lot of money to pay a few dollars for a bottle of water, comparatively the cost is ludicrous.
To put this in terms of a cost that high schoolers understand all too well, comparatively, a gallon of bottled water costs double the price of a gallon of gasoline.
The simple fact is that it only feels safer to drink from a bottle of water because it is perceived to be new and clean, which is nothing but a mind trick.