Your Water Purification Experts
Is Bottled Water Really Pure?
Does Flouride Really Prevent Tooth Decay?
Is Chlorine a Safe Disinfectant?
Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
Unfortunately, the "bottled water" craze is more hype than health. Inadequate regulations offer no assurance of purity. The following are several important pieces of information published in a recent NRDC study on 1,000 bottles, and 103 brands of bottled water.
Contamination - About one-third of the waters tested contained levels of contamination, including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic.
No Regulations - At the national level, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for bottled water safety, but the FDA's rules completely exempt waters that are packaged and sold within the same state, which accounts for between 60 and 70 percent of all bottled water sold in the United States
Lower Standards - Even when bottled waters are covered by the FDA's rules, they are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water.
Parasites - There are no requirements for bottled water to be disinfected or tested for parasites such as cryptosporidium or giardia.
Waste of Money - People spend from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they typically do for tap water.
Disguised Tap Water - Approximately one-fourth of bottled water is actually bottled tap water, according to government and industry estimates. Some estimates go as high as 40 percent.
Chemical Spring Water - FDA rules allow bottlers to call their product "spring water" even though it may be brought to the surface using a pumped well, and it may be treated with chemicals.
Natural Resource Defense Council, March 1999 Petition to the FDA
Water!! A Chemical Cocktail??
Drinking water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that water poses a health risk. EPA sets standards for approximately 90 contaminants in drinking water. EPA's standards, along with each contaminant's likely source and health effects, are available at:
For interesting information about Chlorine and other chemicals in your water: