Who would of thought that drinking bottled water may actually be a bad thing? I was certainly surprised when I came across Tom Standage’s editorial in today’s New York Times (Bad to the Last Drop). Cast your advertising-hype induced perceptions about the purity of that fancy bottle of water and dig in for an excellent read.

Of all the revelations Standage notes is the fact that tap water and bottled water often come from the same sources—municipal water supplies. However, there are more stringent restrictions on the quality of tap water than bottled water:

Much bottled water is, in any case, derived from municipal water supplies, though it is sometimes filtered, or has additional minerals added to it.

…Nor is there any health or nutritional benefit to drinking bottled water over tap water. In one study, published in The Archives of Family Medicine, researchers compared bottled water with tap water from Cleveland, and found that nearly a quarter of the samples of bottled water had significantly higher levels of bacteria

But what about the taste? Doesn’t bottled water taste soooo much better than nasty tap water? Apparently not. Standage opens his editorial with an overview of a blind taste test he conducted, comparing one glass of tap water to several glasses of bottled water:

On the table were 10 bottles of water, several rows of glasses and some paper for recording our impressions. We were to evaluate samples from each bottle for appearance, odor, flavor, mouth, feel and aftertaste - and our aim was to identify the interloper among the famous names. One of our bottles had been filled from the tap. Would we spot it?

We worked our way through the samples, writing scores for each one. None of us could detect any odor, even when swilling water around in large wine glasses, but other differences between the waters were instantly apparent. Between sips, we cleansed our palates with wine. (It seemed only fair, since water serves the same function at a wine tasting.)

The variation between waters was wide, yet the water from the tap did not stand out: only one of us correctly identified it. This simple experiment seemed to confirm that most people cannot tell the difference between tap water and bottled water.

So what’s the deal here? Are bottled water manufacturer’s falsely advertising the cleanliness of their products? Is it ethical to imply the superiority of bottled water over tap water when, in fact, tap water may actually have the edge? Shouldn’t the consumer be more aware of the potential lower-quality and higher bacterial content of bottled water vs tap water, and shouldn’t this information be plastered on the side of the bottle. I doubt bottled water causes the same side effects as the ingredients of cigarettes, however, isn’t the twisting of the truth in the same realm of deceptive advertising? So where’s the Surgeon General’s warning on my bottle of agua?

If you made it to the second part of the editorial, the argument against bottled water becomes even more pronounced:

But despite its association with purity and cleanliness, bottled water is bad for the environment. It is shipped at vast expense from one part of the world to another, is then kept refrigerated before sale, and causes huge numbers of plastic bottles to go into landfills.

…Of course, tap water is not so abundant in the developing world. And that is ultimately why I find the illogical enthusiasm for bottled water not simply peculiar, but distasteful. For those of us in the developed world, safe water is now so abundant that we can afford to shun the tap water under our noses, and drink bottled water instead: our choice of water has become a lifestyle option. For many people in the developing world, however, access to water remains a matter of life or death.

Interesting stuff. I, for one, will be thinking twice before I snag a bottle off the shelf again.

TAGS: Bottled Water | Environment | Health

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 at 9:51 am and is filed under Business Ethics, Social Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.