I admit it, I’ve bought bottled water – and in the last week at that. You probably have too – we buy around 2 billion bottles of it a year in the UK, 37 bottles per person. Why?

 

Bottled water costs 500 times more than tap water, but the marketing gurus have convinced us it is safer and tastes better. Job well done: the UK mineral and spring water market is worth around £1.7 billion a year.

 

But is it healthier or safer? According to Britvic, bottled water now out-sells cola in London. Bottled water is obviously healthier than cola, but there’s no evidence that it's better for us than tap water.

 

The Drinking Water Inspectorate found in 2005 that tap water in the UK met stringent standards in 99.96% of cases. Some bottled water (possibly up to 40 percent) has come straight from the mains anyway. Bottled mineral water may have high salt, sulphur and uranium levels. Add to that bottled water contamination scares (benzene in Perrier in 1989, bromate in Dasani in 2004 and naphthalene in Volvic in 2005) and the entire industry – and our thirst for it – starts to seem a bit mad.

 

But what about taste? Most of us heartily believe that bottled tastes better, but in blind taste tests it seems we can’t tell much difference. Maybe bottled seems tastier because it’s chilled. Easy remedy, just pop a pitcher in the fridge. If your own water really doesn’t taste good to you, try a filter. Click the pic below to see a new video by ECOutlet. The company is raising awareness on the bottled water issue – and  offering the Elamaris Cool and Fjord Cool water filter jugs on sale.

 

So tap water is safe, practically free and tastes just as good. Why in the world do intelligent people buy the stuff? Maybe like me, you don’t buy it for home use, just when you’re caught out when out and about.

We have to balance our convenience with the environmental costs. The UK bottled water industry generates about 33,200 tonnes of CO2 through transport each year. Sustain says some bottled water travels more than 10,000 miles before it reaches our shops. Click here to see Sustain’s interesting report on the industry.

 

There’s also the issue of the plastic manufacturing and waste. Most bottles are made from PET (derived from crude oil) which takes hundreds of years to decompose. Though recycling rates are increasing, millions of plastic water bottles end up in the bin, to be incinerated or put into landfill. Even recycled bottles often take a journey to the Far East for processing.

 

We need some trendy celebs to make the hip flask hip again. It’s easy enough to carry some water with you in a reusable bottle – you just have to remember it before you leave the house, along with your jute shopping bag. I predict it won't be long before buying a plastic bottle of water will cause as many blushes as packing your shopping in plastic.