Cocaine, tap water
Tap water is subject to more stringent safety testing that bottled water (Picture: Getty Images)

We’re told that tap water contains high levels of contaminants such as toxic chemicals, hormones and pesticides.

But experts are saying that bottled water is no better than tap water – and might even be worse.

According to AlterNet, multinationals like PepsiCo, the Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé make a combined £74 billion each year from selling bottled water worldwide.

But in what has been called ‘perhaps the most brazen rip-off ever’, the site reports that the beverage industry is selling water that is possibly worse than tap water, or simply reselling tap water for thousands of times its value.

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(Picture: Getty Images)
‘Big Bev’ has become a multi-billion pound industry (Picture: Getty Images)

‘Water fountains used to be everywhere, but they have slowly disappeared as public water is increasingly pushed out in favor of private control and profit,’ writes water scientist Peter Gleick in his book Bottled & Sold.

‘[They] have become an anachronism, or even a liability, a symbol of the days when homes didn’t have taps and bottled water wasn’t available from every convenience store and corner concession stand. In our health-conscious society, we are afraid that public fountains, and our tap water in general, are sources of contamination and contagion.’

In 2006, a bottled water company called Fiji angered the city of Cleveland, Ohio, when it claimed ‘The label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland’ in its adverts.

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(Picture: Getty Images)
Scientist Peter Gleick says public water is being pushed out (Picture: Getty Images)

In response, Cleveland’s public utilities director ordered tests comparing the bacterial content and fluoride levels of 57 different samples of bottled water with the city’s own water supply and found not only did the city supply blow most of the competition away, but the Fiji brand contained 6.31 microgrammes per litre of arsenic.

Last year, MailOnline reported that in the UK, less rigorous safety testing of bottled water left consumers at the mercy of the companies selling it.

‘Water coming from UK taps is the most stringently tested in the world,’ Professor Paul Younger, of Glasgow University, told the site.

‘From a safety and price perspective, tap water is better for you.’

A spokesperson from the Natural Hydration Council said that bottled water is still subject to a ‘significant number’ of tests, however.

‘In the UK over 90% of the bottled water sold in this country is either natural mineral or spring. Naturally sourced bottled water comes from carefully selected, protected underground sources which are safe to consume at source, otherwise the water cannot be sold.

‘Bottled water is subject to a significant number of individual tests, amounting to several hundreds or thousands of tests each year for every brand of bottled water sold in the UK. It is classified as a food product and as such, must comply with strict EU and national food safety requirements, as well as industry guides to good hygiene and manufacturing practices.’

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