Study Finds Pain Medication, Fertilizer Residue, and Disinfection Byproducts in Bottled Water

Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in five US states substantially exceed the bottled water industry’s own voluntary standards. The Environmental Working Group recommends filtering tap water.

A wide range of pollutants
Same product, different regulations
Plastic water bottles contribute to global warming
EWG Recommendations

With prices 1,900 times higher than tap water, consumers could expect bottled water to exceed garden-hose standards. Unfortunately, this is not the case, if the latest scientific research conducted at the request of Washington-based Environmental Working Group (EWG) is any indication. The sad news includes the presence of toxic chlorination byproducts, as well as trihalomethanes and bromodichloromethane (both of which are as bad as they sound).

One suspects that the bottled water industry’s revenues are practically pure profit, since tap water is virtually free. Expenses are limited to carbon-intensive bottle production and transportation, and, of course, lavish promotional campaigns designed to saturate the media with images of lush mountain springs and healthy water-bottle-toting models.
 

The effectiveness of such campaigns is difficult to deny: Americans now drink twice as much bottled water as they did ten years ago–an average of 100 liters (26 gallons) per person a year, or over 34 billion liters (9 billion gallons). Canada shows more or less the same trend, with per capita consumption more than doubling from under 30 liters in 1998 to 60 liters in 2005, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. In the U.S., water bottle production alone uses 1.5 million barrels of oil a year–enough energy to power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a whole year.

Scientific studies consistently show that all this money and energy are going down the drain, literally. Worse, millions of unsuspecting consumers are being deceived into thinking that they are protecting their health by drinking bottled water when that may be far from true.


A wide range of pollutants 
A leading independent US water quality laboratory conducted tests for EWG on 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia. The lab found an average of 8 contaminants in each brand, for a total of 38 chemical pollutants altogether.

In at least two cases, the bottled water–Walmart's and Giant's store brands–was quite obviously standard municipal water, since it bore the chemical signature of treatment (a cocktail of chlorine disinfection byproducts). Giant water even contained fluoride. In other words, this water is chemically indistinguishable from tap water. (The price tag, however, is strikingly different!)

Analyses conducted by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory on 10 brands of bottled water revealed a range of pollutants, including:

• disinfection byproducts
• common urban wastewater pollutants, e.g. caffeine and pharmaceuticals (Tylenol)
• heavy metals and minerals, including arsenic and radioactive isotopes
• fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia)

Other industrial chemicals used as solvents–plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants–were also tentatively identified. 

The levels of some chemicals in Sam's Choice and Acadia brands exceeded California’s legal limits as well as the bottled water industry’s own voluntary safety standards. Sam’s Choice bottled water, purchased at several San Francisco bay area locations, was polluted with trihalomethanes–disinfection byproducts–at levels that exceed the state’s legal limit for bottled water (CDPR 2008). These byproducts, formed when disinfectants react with residual pollution in the water, are linked to cancer and reproductive problems. According to Walmart representatives, the source for these bottles was Las Vegas tap water.

Also in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice brand, lab tests found a cancer-causing chemical called bromodichloromethane at levels that exceed California’s safety standards for cancer-causing chemicals. EWG is filing suit to have Walmart post a warning on bottles: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer."

Interestingly, Giant's Acadia brand, which also contained trihalomethanes and bromodichloromethane at levels in excess of California’s safety standards, is sold only in Mid-Atlantic states.
 
(Note: Although the EWG study shows that consumers can't trust that bottled water is pure or cleaner than tap water, it was not designed to produce typical pollution profiles of particular brands. Walmart and Giant were named because consistent results over a period of time confirmed that they contained contaminants that exceeded state standards or voluntary industry guidelines.)

Such results beg the question: how can we still trust the purity of bottled water? 

 
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Same product, different regulations
According to Dr. Gina Solomon of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a US-based non-partisan international environmental group, one of the problems in the US is that tap water and bottled water are not governed by the same regulatory bodies. Tap water, on one hand, falls under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires that several tests be performed every day and that the results be made available to the public.

Bottled water, on the other hand, flows under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which trusts the industry to conduct its own weekly tests, with no obligation to report the results to the authorities or the public.

In Canada, bottled water is currently regulated as a food product by the federal government through its agency, Health Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency periodically samples and analyzes both imported and domestic bottled waters. Tests are limited to bacterial contamination, however, and it is not possible to know how frequently or how thoroughly they are performed. Tap water regulation, on the other hand, is far more stringent. Municipal tap water is tested continuously – both during and after treatment.

Both in the US and Canada, there is no question that tap water is much more stringently controlled and regulated.

This does not prevent the bottled water industry from boasting that its internal regulations are stricter than the FDA bottled water regulations (IBWA 2008b). However, it refuses to set forth any evidence to support such claims. In any case, whatever the standards, they are of little use in protecting public health if companies fail to meet them.  

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Plastic water bottles contribute to global warming 
Last January, Canada's Polaris Institute highlighted direct links between bottled water producers and “the largest oil, chemical and plastic corporations on the planet." The main reason, of course, is the production of those innocuous-looking little plastic bottles.

The supply chain for PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles stems from two streams, both of which are derived from crude oil: terephthalic acid (PTA) and monoethylene glycol (MEG). Yes, plastic bottles are made from fossil fuels and chemicals derived from non-renewable resources!

Plus, the production of plastic bottles releases substantial amounts of toxic chemicals into the air and the water supply. In other words, bottled water contributes to global warming.

The conclusion of the Polaris Institute is that “the intimate connections between the bottled water industry and the dirty oil, petrochemical and plastic industries fundamentally contradict the attempts by the water companies to paint their products as healthy and clean.”

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EWG Recommendations
Concerned by the questionable contents of bottled waters, EWG has emitted a number of recommendations, including disclosure of: 

• all test results
• all treatment techniques 
• name and location of source water 

EWG also advocated better protection of the public health and the environment, by recommending that:

• Protections be strengthened for rivers, streams, and groundwater that serve as America’s drinking water sources

• Consumers drink filtered tap water rather than bottled water, arguing that carbon filters cost 12 times less than typical bottled water and remove many of the contaminants found in public tap water supplies.

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Sources

The Environmental Working Group
http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater

Lawmakers Call For Probe Of Bottled-water Labeling – Don’t miss the live “ticker” that indicates how many billion cans and bottled are being landfilled, littered, and incinerated in the US this year. 
http://www.container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plastic/2008/2-14-Fox-LawmakersCallFor.htm

Bottled water in Canada.
http://www.cela.ca/faq/cltn_detail.shtml?x=1506#1701

Oil in My Water? Polaris Institute
http://www.insidethebottle.org/oil-my-water

CDPR
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/ehap.htm

IBWA
http://www.bottledwater.org/public/policies_main.html


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