In blind taste tests, subjects cannot distinguish between bottled and tap water. The majority of American tap water is safe, as is essentially all UK tap water, and more closely regulated for contaminants than bottled. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.Īlso to consider: nothing about bottled water makes it inherently superior to tap. The US Senate energy and natural resources committee served Clear Alaskan Glacial bottled water during the 2016 hearings.

And plastic pollution, to which discarded water bottles contribute immensely, has become an issue so dire experts anticipate that by 2050 the ocean will be filled with more plastic than fish.

This, of course, is happening in a context where water scarcity is an accelerating global crisis, predicted to affect two-thirds of the world’s population by 2025. Whether such elite products are pumped from 3,000 feet beneath Hawaii or extracted from Fijian springs and sprinkled with gold dust, most justify their inherent excess with a similar refrain: the more obscure the origin, or elaborate the preparation, the healthier, higher quality, and more delicious the water. And “ premium” bottled water, the extra-fancy sort touted for “health benefits” like alkalinity, is the fastest-growing sector of the US bottled water industry, itself valued at $18.5bn. Despite an abundance of logical reasons to avoid it, the bottled water industry has never been stronger. The extravagant taglines and price tag make luxury bottled water a sort of liquid climate change for the rich.

Iceberg water