Bottled Water Brands Don't Disclose What's In Their Bottles

What's really in these bottles?

Have you been missing something in your life? Life is hardly worth living when there isn't fresh content here each day, right? Sorry about that. I've been out with the flu for a week (bleh) and missed writing them for you! While I was sick in bed, Congress held an investigative hearing about the bottled water industry last week. The results? Not good...

The Environmental Working Group (I love them) investigated close to 200 different brands of popular bottled water and found that less than 2% disclose what their water source is, how the water has been purified and what chemical pollutants each bottle of water may contain. Just 2 of the 188 individual brands EWG analyzed disclosed those three basic facts about their water. To read the entire report, check out www.ewg.org/health/report/bottledwater-scorecard

The results reveal a huge gap in government regulation in the bottled water industry. Some of the more interesting discoveries were that mainstream brands such as Sam’s Club and Walgreen’s scored relatively high marks, while waters marketed as elite, including Perrier, S. Pellegrino and the Whole Foods store brand, flunked because they provided almost no meaningful information for consumers.

Why the glaring lack of disclosure? Mr. Houlihan said that bottled water companies enjoy a regulatory holiday under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which give beverage corporations complete latitude to choose what, if any, information about their water they divulge to customers.

In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- the federal agency that oversees the nation’s municipal water utilities -- requires all 52,000 community tap water suppliers nationwide to produce an annual water quality report: The utilities’ reports detail water source and pollutant testing results for customers, as required under the Safe Drinking Water Act. An estimated 58% of these reports also describe water treatment methods.

“Many people assume bottled water is healthier and safer to drink than ordinary tap water. But some companies have lured consumers away from the tap with claims of health and purity that aren’t backed by public data,” Houlihan said. “The ugly truth is that under lax federal law, consumers know very little about the quality of bottled water on which they spend billions every year.”

“The Bottled water industry's strategy has been to market bottled water as the safe and clean alternative to tap water,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the non-profit consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “This myth has been used to trick consumers into paying thousands times more for a product that is the same or even more polluted than the water available from our faucets.

Legislation is underway to close loopholes in nationwide bottled water standards. A California law effective January 1, 2009, requires bottled water companies to post information on the water source, treatment and testing on labels and websites. A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last year would require similar strictures at the federal level.

-Trina-