Bottled Water: Do Brands Have Something To Hide When It Comes To Purity?
January 24, 2011 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis Mostly gone are the images of pristine mountain lakes from advertisers trying to get health-conscious consumers (usually moms) to believe that their water is the purest. Today, the push is more toward showing bottled water as a rejuvenating sports drink promoted by athletes.
Despite all the hype, questions still remains, including how clean and healthy are bottled water products compared to tap water, and are they worth the money?
Image courtesy of CartoonStock.com.A survey over the last few years by Food and Water Watch “documented bottled water prices ranging from $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon,” compared to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon, on average, nationwide.”
So is all bottled water the same and worth the money?
To find out the answers to these questions, the Environmental Working Group ran its second ever annual survey to see how forthcoming bottled water companies are about the quality of their products.
The EWG surveyed the labels of 173 different bottled water products to see if they disclosed information about their water sources; purification methods; and purity testing results – not much to ask if you’re not hiding anything.
Overall, over half the brands failed the EWG’s transparency test. The worst offender was Whole Foods’ Italian Still Mineral Water, which found its way to the bottom of the heap. The company doesn’t provide any of the basic information about the water on the labels or the website.