I heard that Aquafina is really just tap water.

[LoZoccolo]

Is that true? How could they do that?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. It's not that hard. They open up the tap, (probably cold water, I 'spect)

and then they fill the bottles and charge us a fortune.

[ThomCat]

2. It's cheap, it's profitable, and people believe marketting hype.

Of course they'd do it.

It's been well known ever since Aquafina first hit the market.

[JI7]

3. it's still purified so if you are in an area where the tap water is not good

Aquafina would be better.

[acmavm]

5. Omaha tap water sucks. You can smell it before you drink it. So therefore,

if I want water I have to pay for it.

I quit drinking water years ago because it tastes so crappy. So did most of my friends. A couple have water coolers in their homes and at the cost of store bought water that may be a good idea. I'm thinking of looking into it because otherwise I just can't drink the smelly mineral tasting crap we have here.

[JI7]

7. the Los Angeles tap water is fine to me. what is the source of your tap water ?

[acmavm]

10. I would guess the Missouri River.

Omaha's water supply, for practical purposes, limited only by the system's physical capabilities. Primary sources of water are the Missouri River and a system of wells on the Platte River. Current capacity of MUD's two water treatment plants is 232 million gallons per day, with current average daily demand of 89 million gallons per day. An additional 70 million gallons per day water field is planned by the year 2000. Omaha's water quality meets or exceeds all current and proposed federal water standards.

[Beerboy]

19. I remember Minneapolis tap water in the 70s,

and you could definitely smell the funk when you turned on the tap. An algae problem of some sort, but definitely a well regulated municipal utility, as they still are. I'd boil suspicious water before I'd buy it.

[acmavm]

25. What you smell and taste here is the bitterness of all the chemicals.

[Kingshakabobo]

23. At the risk of asking a silly question, have you ever tried a 'Brita' pitcher?

I figure everyone knew about Brita but my neighbor just purchased one and she can't get over how great it is. Of course, we are in Chicago were the water is pretty good to start with.........It makes tap water taste like filtered. Even our dog is spoiled on it and won't drink tap water unless she absolutely has to and it's running from a fountain/faucet.

Our water is so heavily chlorinated it can taste like pool water if left overnight on the night stand. if it's filtered it can sit for days and still taste crystal clear.

Just a thought.

[Fierce]

28. Odd...I don't mind Omaha tap water.

It's a bit chlorine-y, but I think it's fine. Maybe it's a neighborhood thing.

[MaraJade]

44. Same problem here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

A nasty metallic/bleachy smell and taste from the purification chemicals. It's a complete turnoff.

Get a BRITA or PUR filter and save your money on the bottled stuff.

[Bluebear]

4. :)

[Blue Fire]

6. I read that in today's paper.

Aquafina (owned by Pepsico) comes from a 'public water source' (Pepsico says they will now be labeled as such), and goes through a 7-step purification process. Then low and behold, it's more valuable than gas!

[ozone_man]

8. Most tap water is very good.

And filters can improve the taste by taking out residual chlorine, etc.. I think mine tastes as good as bottled water with my new filter. NYC has about the best water as far as I know, coming from the Catskills and Adirondacks.

Bottled water is an environmental problem, with the cost of making containers and all. Best to demand that your city supply good drinking water from the tap.

[MaraJade]

40. Actually NYC has the best tap water. . .

Ours comes from the nasty old Susquehanna River which has had odd problems with
E.Coli contamination lately.

I LUVVVV my PUR filter!

[RufusTFirefly]

Well now. There's a shocker.

Why would some gigantic profit-driven multinational screw us over in order to make more money? I mean, it just doesn't make sense!



And hey, while we're at it, why is the taxpayer-funded water system so unreliable? Must be that darn big gubmint, I guess.

[BlooInBloo]

9. I *totally* understand why we need a jillion Aquafina threads.

[sam sarrha]

11. does it say.. filtered by osmosis.. that is different

[Bluebear]

12. OT do you suggest a reverse osmosis system for the home tap? nt

[sam sarrha]

14. if you have chlorine yes, if you have arsenic yes.. etc etc.. i got a simple 5 year cylinder and a

little tap faucet for drinking water.. cost was cartridge $24.. tap $8...when i lived in el paso TX i didn't know anyone who drank the water, we didn't even let the pets drink it..

[zehnkatzen]

13. They never said it was anything other...

...than filtered water, at least as far as I can discern (I live in Portland, Oregon, so I drink from the tap with impugnity).

Looking at a bottle of Aquafina recently I notice the only thing they claimed was that it was filtered water enhanced with a couple of minerals. While they never said it wasn't spring water, people assume since they're buying it for a price in a bottle it's got to be better than that pedestrian stuff out of the sink.

It's a sin of omission, really, not of commission.

But now they're going to say it's "from a public source", meaning regular, water dept. water–tap or otherwise.

[jgraz]

15. I know!! I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you!!!111

What's next? An attorney general who obstructs justice and then lies to congress??? Say it isn't so!

[Beerboy]

16. Because it's legal.

I've heard about this sort of thing for years and never really bought into the whole bottled water trend except by the gallon of distilled water.
20 oz. bottles are an enormous drag, what with the plastics involved and the fuel consumed to ship it, no wondr it costs so much. I can't provide links, but I've read that a lot of municipal tap water is equal to or superior than 20 oz bottles of water. I'm sure it's legal, but then so is putting a rock in a box and selling it as a 'pet'.

[alarimer]

17. Many bottled waters are

Ozarka (which makes you think of a nice cool stream in Arkansas) is actually municipal tap water. I can't remember where. We have one from Corpus Christi tap water but I can't remember the brand name. Most label it as such though. It's right there on the bottle.

[Babsbrain]

18. Walmart's brand (Sams Club I think) is from the tap water in Tampa

Probably the only thing you can buy there that's not from China

[onehandle]

20. So is Dasani. Coca-Cola's tap water brand.

Why aren't they making headlines?

Unless it says Spring Water on the label, it's tap water. I've always known this.

Read the label of Everything you consume!

"Coca-Cola uses water from local municipal water supplies (tap water), filters it using the process of reverse osmosis and adds trace amounts of minerals, including Magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt), Potassium chloride (a sodium-free substitute for table salt), and common salt."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasani

[LoZoccolo]

24. Dasani does not have a mountain on the label. n/t

[onehandle]

29. True, but I bet that most people think it's "more than tap water."

I know the designer who designed the brand here in Atlanta. They told me that they wanted to convey a sense of purity, like the water was made for a spa or came from a spring.

[KittyWampus]

33. ginger ale used to have a fairy on it and I didn't think it contained fairy dust

[MaraJade]

38. Funny this. . .

I remember the brand with the Inuit (Eskimo) on the label. Good stuff.

Of course ginger grows nowhere near the Arctic Circle.

[Nevernose]

41. It also outsells regular Coca Cola

AND it's even cheaper to produce than their soda. I suspect most "spring water" is also tap water, taken from municipalities that have some fraction of their supply pumped in from a well or wells.

[qdemn7]

21. I lived in a small town in Texas

And the tap water there was terrible. After a few year I cooked and ate with only bottled water.

[zehnkatzen]

32. That must be remembered...

...there are places in this country where the tap water is unfit to drink (or at least unpalatable) no matter what you do to it...hard water, naturally too-high in mineral content. As they said in the old West, you don't want to drink that sweet-water. It was sweet because it had stuff in it you don't want to have in you, and this was before there was massive industry. I shudder to think of some areas today.

As another example, we have acquaintances who live around Phoenix who tell us that the best water is usually reserved for industrial use. To try to exist on anything other than bottled water is folly in those areas.

So there are valid reasons to drink bottled water, not just everywhere. Most places, the "tap" water is perfectly healthful and doesn't harm a fly. In areas such as my native Oregon, most municipal water is amongst the best (and actually tastiest) water you can find anywhere, most notably my hometown's Bull Run water (which, trust me, we pay for concomitantly–the quarterly water bill is always an exercise in amazement. But we get what we pay for).

The point, all along, as I see it, is twofold:

1. Most 'bottled water' is marketed with the assistance of a "sin of omssion", as I see it; by dressing brands like Aquafina and Dasani up in upmarket packaging, Coke and Pepsi are leveraging the considerable good will of such brands that really do come from unique or exotic sources. In the mind, Jack and Jill Consumer group these with such products as Perrier, S. Pellegrino, &c, even though they are just as exotic actually as regular ol' sink water. The key here is that Aquafina and Dasani have never been marketed as anything other than merely filtered water, and have never (as far I know) touted any claims of being from any spring or exotic source. This dressing-up is not illegal at all; they put a shiny finish on it and let the consumer's typical credulity (which nobody ever underestimated) do the rest of the work; it looks like one of them so it must be like them.

2. The "dirty little open secret" (if I may) of bottled water is that the standards it must meet to be considered fit for human consumption are actually lower than the standards municipal supplies must meet. That is not the same as saying that you can trust every tap you turn; as mentioned before, there are areas of the country in which the wise choice is to drink bottled water. But those areas are, thankfully at this time, few and far between and are fairly well known. What this does mean, though, is that something in municipal supplies that would otherwise get publicity as a health alert could conceivably make it into your bottled water because public supplies are tested for more things and more often; just like any corporate product in these deregulated times, bottled water should be regarded with suspicion; as a 'necessary evil'.

The end result of the two perceptions is the elevation of what is actually a pedestrian product to an upmarket status it does not deserve. As documented elsewhere, mass-market bottled waters are an indulgence that has extravagant high hidden costs, and is virtually irresistible when combined with the marketing leviathan that is Coke and/or PepsiCo, making the consumption of bottled water where it is not necessary to do so a highly taxing modern indulgence that we should be a whole lot more circumspect about than we currently are.

[Bryn]

22. Lucky me

I live in Hot Springs, AR where people can go and get free hot spring water in several places to fill jugs with and it's clean and safe and tastes good. That's where I go every week. Filling several jugs at one of fountains or at the faucets with healthy mineral water and take home. No buying bottled water.

[lonestarnot]

26. Prollee worse than tap water when they get done with it.

[MaraJade]

39. Nope. . .

It's actually better than tap water when they are through.

But as I previously said, regular folks can get the same with a good faucet filter installed in the home.

[blogslut]

27. Remember kids

Evian is naive spelled backwards.

[onehandle]

30. At least it ain't ain't tap water.

And it's produced by a French company, which surely must be bankrupt by now due to Captain Phone Sex's "boycott."

"Evian is a brand of mineral water from several sources near Lake Geneva. Evian takes over 15 years to filter through mineral rich glacial sands in the French Alps. Bottled at the source, Evian comes from the Cachat Spring located on the Southern shore of Lake Geneva, in the town of Evian-les-Bains."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evian

[Keefer]

31. Aquafina and "P.W.S."

"P.W.S." = Public Water Supply. :

"Friday, July 27, 2007

UPDATED: 4:28 PM
Aquafina's H20 comes from P.W.S.

Associated Press



NEW YORK (AP) _ So you thought that water in your Aquafina bottle came from some far-away spring bubbling deep in a glen? Try the same place as the water in your tap.

PepsiCo Inc. is the latest company to offer some clarity about the source of its top-selling bottled water as it announced on Friday it would change the label on Aquafina water bottles to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water.

A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. The group has criticized PepsiCo over its blue Aquafina label with a mountain logo as perpetuating the misconception that the water comes from spring sources.

Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." "

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770727026

[PA Democrat]

34. Ever see Lewis Black's comedy routine about bottled water?

He said its source is a little old couple in Pittsburgh filling plastic bottles in their bathtub.

Sometimes comedy is closer to the truth than you think!

[Ms. Toad]

35. Did anyone really not know this? n/t

[MaraJade]

36. I knew this for years. . .

"Dasani" (the Coke product)is also tap water. But these corporations just don't fill up the bottles from a tap.

Basically what they do is run tap water through a three step, reverse osmosis treatment process and bottle it.
I am really surprised that people did not know this. I guess I am such a label reader.

There is a very good reason why some people prefer to drink this purified water. Due to compromised
immune systems people with cancer or HIV
are better off drinking it because of the pathogenic protozoans and cysts that do occur in tap or spring water.

Now hear this, people; if the bottle doesn't say "Spring Water," it isn't.

Personally, I don't like the off tastes of tap water. Ours comes from the Susquehanna River, which has
occasional problems due to flooding and runoff. To combat these problems, United Water/Pennsylvania keeps
adding extra chemicals and chlorine. Makes for a fairly nasty taste, especially when one wants a good cup of tea
or coffee.

When I found out about the bottled "purified water" about three years ago, I bought one of those "PUR" faucet
filters for my home and hooked it up to the kitchen sink. The system is not cheap. The device will run you about
$35.00 and a three-stage replacement filter costs about $15.00, but you can get about a
hundred gallons of the same kind of purified water from the kitchen tap. Buy a reusable plastic bottle and
voila! I have an athlete in the family (my daughter the swimmer and skater) and filling up before those
trips to the rink or to the lifeguarding job sure save a lot of money. PUR water also makes a great cup of coffee.

The BRITA filters are just as good.

Moral--read those labels, people. Pepsi and Coke didn't lie; they just relied on people's failure to
read the label.

[BlooInBloo]

37. Oh no! My snobbishness turns out to have been completely unjustified....

... and now I am a laughing stock of all those I used to hold my noses up to! The shame! THE SHAME!!!!

[kenny blankenship]

42. I heard that tap water...comes from the GOVERNMENT!

but if you tell anyone I said that I will swear on a stack of Bibles that you're a liar.

[Synnical]

43. Water is the next oil

Pay attention.

No water in South America, Africa, Asia.

Canada had lots of water!

[LWolf]

45. I love my tap water.

It comes up from 450 feet beneath my sheep pasture. Well filtered by volcanic rock and sand, it is clear, icy, and delicious year-round.