Is Bottled Water Really Better For You?

So, bottled water is kind of a scam. People think it’s healthier and safer, despite zero evidence to back that up. So… is it all just one giant marketing con? Well… kinda.

In this episode, I’m taking you through the wild history of bottled water to show exactly how we ended up here - and why it’s so, so, so ridiculous!

Quick note: I originally did the research and writing for this podcast in July 2024, so the stats I mention are current to that period.

Transcript

Can you imagine a better business model than getting something for next to nothing and selling it for thousands, all whilst lapping up praise and adulation for your generosity? Well, welcome back and brace yourself, because today I'm having a rant about bottled water. Forty or fifty years ago, bottled water was just not the thing it is today. It’s been around for centuries. In fact, the very first bottled water plant, using the term loosely, was the Holy Well Bottling Plant in the UK, created in 1622. And you were encouraged to drink it, bathe in it, and it would cure everything from syphilis, otherwise known somewhat unkindly as the French disease, to consumption, that’s tuberculosis, or even rot of the brain. God knows what that referred to.

Bottled water first became commercially available in 1767 from Boston in the USA, so yes, technically kind of an American invention. Jackson's Spa bottled their mineral water to try and share the benefits with all of the poor people who couldn’t get there. It was a kind thing to do and they sold millions, so their kindness paid off. Then, in 1783, Johann Jacob Schweppe discovered a way to carbonate water, giving us instant soda water. No prizes for guessing which company he went on to found.

Back then, some, or maybe most, of this water was genuinely safer than what came out of public plumbing, because typhoid and cholera were basically a sure thing if you drank from most public pumps. You can't blame those who could afford it for drinking bottled water, though, and of course, it may well have been contaminated too because there was no testing. Around 1908–1910, chlorination began to be used, and bottled water started to lose favor as people realised tap water was safer and, of course, free. Bottled water dwindled to mostly small mineral sales, nothing exciting.

Then, about 40 years later, something arrived that changed the game: plastic bottles. They were considered a better alternative to glass because they didn't break and were easier to reuse. Nothing really happened until polyethylene terephthalate bottles, or PET, were invented by engineer Nathaniel Wyeth from DuPont. PET made plastic bottles cheap, cheap, and easy to work with.

In the 1970s, everybody was drinking tap water, bottled water sales were low, and then comes Perrier. You’ve probably seen it—the beautiful green glass bottle, almost unchanged since then. Perrier, a French sparkling water brand, wanted to enter the US market, the world’s largest consumer market at the time. They hired a clever marketing executive, Bruce Nevins, and used Orson Welles to turn water into the next elite product. In one of the few celebrity endorsements that actually worked, sales jumped from 3 million bottles in 1975 to 200 million in 1980. That is bonkers. Talk about an epic success story.

Then, in 1992, Nestlé bought Perrier. Nestlé’s Pure Life campaign is essentially the mastermind behind the world's growing obsession with bottled water. They even had to destroy 2 million bottles in April because they contained bacteria of fecal origin. Incredible PR, incredible marketing, and credit where credit is due—they spread the idea that tap water isn’t good enough.

So where are we now? Last year, 600 billion bottles of water were sold globally. It’s expected to be worth $700 billion in New Zealand by 2030. The biggest buyer is China, with about 40 billion liters sold, despite 92% of the population having access to safe, healthy tap water. The USA bought roughly another 40 billion liters, with about 99% having access to safe tap water. Of the top seven countries that consume bottled water, only Mexico has more than 10% of the urban population with unsafe tap water, at 12%.

The question really is, why are we buying so much bottled water when it’s literally on tap in our homes, and so much money is spent ensuring that tap water is safe? One of the biggest arguments is convenience, but statistics tell a different story: 60% of bottled water sales are at supermarkets, typically in bulk packs; 30% are in convenience stores; the remaining 10% are in restaurants, hotels, and even online. Convenience doesn’t explain it - it’s health perception. People have drunk the Kool-Aid, so to speak, and believe bottled water is healthier or safer.

Standards for bottled water are technically the same as tap water, but monitoring differs. Tap water is tested at least daily, often more, while bottled water factories may only test once a week and are not required to publicly report results as frequently. That’s potentially millions of bottles affected if something goes wrong within that week. Studies have shown bottled water can be less safe than tap due to this lack of oversight. The NRDC conducted a four-year study analyzing over 1,000 bottles from 103 brands and found one-third violated industry standards or exceeded limits for contaminants like arsenic or synthetic organic chemicals. That doesn’t happen with tap water, because it’s caught first.

Then there’s Fiji Water, which really frustrates me. Taking water from a developing nation, profiting in the tens of millions, and giving almost nothing back to the place you got it, often leaving the area worse off due to plastic waste. Bottled water isn’t necessarily bad for you, but it’s not better than tap. I travel a lot and always drink tap water. PR marketing is so insidious that people don’t even know they’ve been sold a myth.

Microplastics are another concern. Scientists struggle to study their effects because there’s no control group - everyone has microplastics in their bodies. Studies show 93% of bottled water samples contain microplastics versus 83% of tap water. Bottled water averages 325 microplastic particles per liter, while tap has only 5.4. Microplastics also absorb other chemicals like dioxins, potentially transporting harmful substances into the body. The more bottled water we buy, the more microplastics we create.

Health claims are largely overstated. Some mineral waters have higher magnesium, which can be helpful if you’re deficient, but most bottled water isn’t from mineral springs at all. Thanks to clever lobbying, the definition of spring water is weak, meaning bottled water often comes from the same place as your tap water—you’re just paying a lot more, sometimes thousands of times more.

A historical example: Radithor, radium-infused drinking water. The radium was incorporated into bones and teeth but eventually caused jaw deterioration. Obviously, modern bottled water isn’t radioactive, but people still have the peculiar belief that if it’s in a bottle and says “mineral” or “spring,” it must be healthier.

We have this belief that these businesses aren't lying to us, which is odd, because cynicism against corporates is at an all-time high. And yet what we say about these companies and what we do in supermarkets are two totally different things. Despite significantly stricter standards than Radithor days, these businesses are still misleading you. The stuff in the bottles is no better for you than tap water - 99.9999999 times out of 100.

OK, fine, let’s talk about fluoride and chlorine. Both are commonly added to tap water for safety and health benefits, because they are safe. Both are proven over and over to be safe at the concentrations in which they are added. Yes, they can be nasty chemicals, but we all know now that the dose makes the poison. Water itself is enormously dangerous if you drink too much.

Chlorine is used in tiny, tiny quantities - in Aotearoa, around 0.2 parts per million. The WHO considers up to five parts per million, 25 times higher, to be safe. It disinfects water, keeping it free from amoebas, E. coli, and other contaminants. Sometimes, even under 0.5 parts per million, you can taste or smell chlorine. Easy solution: use a filter like a Brita, or just let the water sit for a couple of hours in the fridge - most of the chlorine will evaporate.

Fluoride does not evaporate. It’s added to prevent tooth decay and is endorsed by numerous health organizations, including the WHO and CDC. If you want to be shocked, look at dental health standards in Aotearoa - they’re not great. That’s why fluoride is added. Concerns about fluoride being a neurotoxin come from very high dose studies. The levels used in water fluoridation - 0.7 to 1 part per million in New Zealand - are considered perfectly safe. The safe level set by the WHO is 1.5 parts per million; in the USA, the EPA allows up to four parts per million. We are well below those thresholds. There’s often more fluoride in grapes, raisins, wine, vegetables, tea, and coffee. Bottled water may or may not contain fluoride, depending on the brand and source.

Another concern is nitrates, which are linked to bowel cancer. Nitrates come from farming runoff and contaminate some freshwater. Tap water is monitored strictly, so if you’re on town supply, you’re fine. Rural areas and well users may want to get water tested. Bottled water may contain nitrates too, since a lot of it comes from the same sources, with the same standards. Spring water, supposedly healthier, may have lower levels, but there’s no scientific basis.

Alkaline water? Absolute rubbish. You cannot change your body’s pH by drinking it, and trying would be fatal.

Not everyone in Aotearoa has safe tap water. Boil water notices exist in a few places, and I feel sorry for those affected. But the long-term solution to unsafe tap water is not buying bottled water - governments need to act.

Despite all this, most people still think bottled water is safer. Marketing is that pervasive. You can’t blame people in Flint for buying bottled water when over 97% of plumbing has been replaced and rigorous testing is in place. But why are we buying it here? Have you ever wondered where bottled water actually comes from? Many brands claim “spring water,” but the definition is grey. Cases exist where so-called spring water is just regular aquifer water - you’re paying a lot more for it. Court cases against brands like Nestlé show the scale of this. Companies can pay as little as $200 in licensing fees to pump millions of liters of water - this is a New Zealand stat, not a US one.

One publicly available example is Oroveda, which pays about $500 annually to draw 400,000 liters per day from the Otakiri Aquifer in the Bay of Plenty - that’s roughly 146 million liters per year for $526 in compliance fees. Their marketing is hilarious: claiming the water originates in Antarctica, where gale-force winds carry ice crystals via the jet stream to New Zealand. Romantic, if you like, but still, it’s just water.

It should annoy people that companies are bottling a natural resource for next to nothing, selling it for huge profits, destroying ecosystems, and polluting the environment with plastic. And we’re paying them for it.

Most water bottles are made of PET, technically recyclable, but often aren’t due to sheer volume - about 31% recycled in New Zealand, 36% in Australia. Most aren’t made of recycled plastic because virgin plastic is cheaper. For every liter of bottled water, it takes three liters to produce it - 1.5 liters for the bottle, the rest for processing.

Fast facts: in Aotearoa, we use 11,000 tons of plastic bottles each year, and 69% end up in landfill or the ocean. In Australia, 373 million bottles are used annually, over 60% not recycled. In the USA, 50 billion bottles are used each year - 35 billion not recycled. Water shortages are worsening due to climate change and poor treatment of freshwater. Bottled water isn’t the biggest driver, but it’s significant. About 83 million liters of water are trapped in landfills each year in plastic bottles, effectively removed from the water cycle. Freshwater is finite.

So let’s stop falling for the hype. Embrace tap water, ban the bottle, go plastic-free, and stop lining the pockets of companies who manipulate us into buying something they effectively get for free.

This was a funny episode to write - enraging, but fun. If you want to know more, there’s a fabulous Netflix series called Rotten, with an episode on bottled water, and others on avocados, which are way more war-torn than you might imagine. And if you’re heading out, take your reusable water bottle. Kia ora kaitiaki. Have a wonderful week.

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