What’s In Your Bottled Water – Besides
Water?
Pure, clean water.
That’s what the ads say. But what does the lab say?
When you shell out for bottled water, which costs
up to 1,900 times more than tap water, you have a
right to know what exactly is inside that pricey plastic
bottle. Most bottled makers don’t agree. They keep secret
some or all the answers to these elementary questions:
• Where does the water come from?
• Is it purified? How?
• Have tests found any contaminants?
Among the ten best-selling brands,
nine — Pepsi’s
Aquafina, Coca-Cola’s
Dasani, Crystal Geyser
and 6 of 7 Nestlé brands — don’t answer
at least one of those questions. Only one — Nestlé’s Pure Life Purified
Water — discloses its specific
geographic water source and treatment
method on the label and offers
an 800-number, website or
mailing address where consumers
can request a water
quality test report.
The industry’s refusal to tell consumers everything they deserve to
know about their bottled water is surprising.
Since July 2009, when Environmental Working
Group released its groundbreaking Bottled Water
Scorecard documenting the industry’s failure to
disclose contaminants and other crucial facts about
their products, bottled water producers have been
taking withering fire from consumer and environmental
groups.
A new EWG survey of 173 unique bottled water
products finds a few improvements – but still
too many secrets and too much advertising hype.
Overall, 18 percent of bottled waters fail to list the
location of their source, and 32 percent disclose
nothing about the treatment or purity of the water.