Dr. Alan Frischer

When you drink your next bottle of water, will you picture the pure mountain spring from whence it came? Will you be stronger and healthier as a result of drinking that water?

In 2006, Americans drank about a billion bottles of water per week. That comes to 167 bottles per person per year in America. We have raised a generation that views tap water with suspicion, and is willing to pay three to four times the cost of gasoline for bottled water. Furthermore, the cost to society includes moving these bottles around every week in ships, trains and trucks. We purchase these bottles of water with the images of majestic mountains, beautiful glaciers, and crystal clear springs firmly implanted in our minds. Are we consuming something pure and healthful, or is the marketing misleading? Is bottled water indeed purer than tap water?

Bottled water seems like a pretty new idea – one born during this era of heightened awareness of fitness and pollution. However, water has been bottled and sold far from the source for thousands of years. In Europe, water from mineral springs was often thought to have curative and religious powers. In the late 1940’s, the office water cooler began to pop up everywhere. Today, there are dozens of brands of bottled water and many different varieties, including flavored and carbonated, which the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is responsible for regulating. They classify bottled water into artesian well water, well water, mineral water, and spring water. However, don’t assume that bottled water is necessarily any purer, more regulated, or safer than tap water. Municipal water systems serving communities across America are subject to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. As such, tap water is consistently and thoroughly tested for harmful substances. If a problem is found, consumers are notified. Further, tap water often contains fluoride and bottled water usually does not.

Some marketing is clearly and intentionally misleading, implying that the water comes from pristine sources when in fact it does not. According to the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental protection organization, one brand of “spring water” has a label picturing a lake and mountains, when in fact the water comes from a well in an industrial parking lot not far from a hazardous waste dump. Another brand claimed to be “Alaska Premium Glacier Drinking Water: Pure Glacier Water From the Last Unspoiled Frontier, Bacteria Free”, and comes from a public water supply. This label was changed after FDA intervention. Finally, Vals bottled water claims the following: “Known to Generations in France for its Purity and Agreeable Contribution to Health…. Reputed to Help Restore Energy, Vitality, and Combat Fatigue.” The International Bottled Water Association voluntary code prohibits health claims. Regardless of bottle labels, according to government and industry estimates, about 25-40% of bottled water is from the tap.

Taking one step forward, recently Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law that requires bottled-water manufacturers to disclose the source of your bottled water on the label.

Both tap (or municipal) water and bottled water are considered safe to drink. The FDA regulates bottled water, and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulates tap water. The present regulations for the FDA and the EPA are similar. (During the 1990’s, FDA guidelines for bottled water were actually weaker than were the EPA guidelines for tap water.) Even with present guidelines being equally stringent, the argument has been made that bottled water policing is not a high priority for the FDA. If you are drinking bottled water instead of tap water because you are concerned about a specific contaminant, it is very difficult to assess the risk for a given brand. It is also fair to say that bottled water is often simply municipal water bottled and sold at a cost of over 400 times the cost of tap water. Also, for those of us who attempt to be environmentally conscious, bottled water uses more resources and produces more waste than does tap water.

Many of you have heard about the dangers caused by re-using plastic bottles or storing them in your car. E-mail has widely circulated the claim that the bottles contain DEHA, and label DEHA as a potential carcinogen. Another often-forwarded e-mail states that women should never drink from bottled water that has been left in a car because the heat releases chemicals from the plastic of the bottle that can lead to breast cancer. These e-mails were apparently based on a single Master’s thesis that has not been replicated. DEHA is in fact not found in the plastic used to make these bottles, and the EPA states that DEHA “cannot reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer, teratogenic effects, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, gene mutations, liver, kidney, reproductive, or developmental toxicity or other serious or irreversible chronic health effects.”

Other concerns circulating about plastic water bottles involve two additional chemicals, bisphenol A (BPA) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The debate rages on because heat DOES cause the release of some chemicals from plastic. Whether this is dangerous is still unresolved. The best I can say is that at this time there is no conclusive evidence linking re-used or heated water bottles and health dangers. Of course, simply re-using a water bottle too many times can cause your own germs to transfer from your mouth to the bottle, and then multiply into potentially disease-causing quantities.

What about problems with plastic water bottles and landfills? The largest bottled-water factory in North America is located in Maine. Stored there at any one time are 24 million bottles of Poland Spring water. They stretch across six acres, and are shipped off and replaced with new bottles on a regular basis. As noted above, we are consuming one billion plastic water bottles per week. Presently, we recycle some of those, but we bury 38 billion water bottles into landfills each year. Do note, however, that we also consume carbonated drinks at twice that rate. They too pose the same significant environmental issues. Practical solutions for recycling are necessary to solve many issues, not just water bottle disposal. The difference is that water is simply available from the tap, and soda is not.

So where does that leave us? While most bottled water is apparently of good quality, public awareness of data is scarce. Regulatory agencies have found numerous cases where bottled water has been contaminated at levels that exceed state or federal standards. Since municipal water is tested far more often than bottled water, it is found far more often to be in compliance with federal standards.

Given that tap water faces tougher regulatory guidelines, my suggestion is to install a water filtration system and use that water to refill a well-cleaned, durable Nalgene-type bottle. You’ll get good taste, a pure product, and your pocketbook will thank you. Good health to you all. Cheers!