The Questionable Safety of Bottled Water

The United States sold 2.6 billion cases of bottled water in 2006, according to Beverage Digest, which equates to U.S. consumers spending about $15 billion on bottled water in one year. Worldwide sales top out at more than $35 billion. That’s not chump change!

Drinking pure water is one of the most important things you can do for your health, particularly when you drink it instead of sugary drinks like soda or juice. However, relying on bottled water to keep you hydrated is not the best answer.

You may be paying premium prices for bottled water, thinking it’s more pure than your local water supply. But the toll this takes on the environment, not to mention your pocketbook, is enormous.

The Questionable Safety of Bottled Water

The fact that water is bottled is NOT an assurance of purity. In fact, about 40 percent of bottled water is regular tap water, which may or may not have received any additional treatment.

The metal antimony (a silvery white metal of medium hardness) has been found in many commercially bottled water brands, for example. The amount of antimony leeching into the water you're drinking depends on the manufacturer, and can vary greatly. One study that looked at 63 brands of bottled water produced in Europe and Canada, found concentrations of antimony that were more than 100 times the typical level found in clean groundwater (2 parts per trillion). It also found that the longer a bottle of water sits on a shelf -- in a grocery store or your refrigerator – the greater the dose of antimony present.

After letting bottled water samples sit for six months on a shelf at normal room temperatures, the concentration of antimony exploded by 90 percent among European brands, and 19 percent in Canadian brands. The common denominator? The biggest offenders were packaged in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers. It is believed that the amount of antimony leeching from these PET bottles differs based on exposure to sunlight, higher temperatures, and varying pH levels.

Most municipal tap water -- though generally far from pure -- must also adhere to stricter purity standards than the bottled water industry. In one study, a third of more than 100 bottled water brands tested for contaminants were found to contain chemicals like arsenic and carcinogenic compounds, at levels exceeding state or industry standards.

Additionally, fluoride (a highly toxic bone poison that should be avoided at all costs) is usually present in both tap water AND filtered bottled water.