Bottling Companies Using Drought Zone Water

Bottled Water Comes from California Which Is Experiencing the Third Driest Year Recorded

The details of where and how bottling companies get their water are oftenquite murky,but generally speaking, bottled water falls into two categories. The first is "spring water," or groundwater that's collected,according to the EPA, "at the point where water flows naturally to the earth's surface or from a borehole that taps into the underground source." About55 percentof bottled water in the United States is spring water, including Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead.

The other 45 percent comes from the municipal water supply, meaning that companies, including Aquafina and Dasani, simply treat tap water—the same stuff that comes out of your faucet at home—and bottle it up. (Weird, right?)

But regardless of whether companies bottle from springs or the tap, lots of them are using water in exactly the areas that need it most right now.

The map above shows the sources of water for four big-name companies that bottle in California. Aquafina and Dasani "sources" are the facilities where tap water is treated and bottled, whereas Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead "sources" refer to the springs themselves.

In the grand scheme of things, the amount of water used for bottling in California is only a tiny fraction of the amount of water used for food and beverage production—plenty of other bottled drinks use California's water, and a whopping 80 percent of the state's water supply goes towards agriculture. But still, the question remains: Why are Americans across the country drinking bottled water from drought-ridden California?

One reason is simply that California happens to be where some bottled water brands have set up shop.

Despite the fact that almost all US tap water isbetter regulatedand monitored than bottled, and despite the heftyenvironmentalfootprint of the bottled water industry, perhaps the biggest reason thatbottling companies are using water in drought zones is simply because we're still providing a demand for it: In 2012 inthe United States alone, the industry produced about10 billion gallonsof bottled water, with sales revenues at $12 billion.

Source: Mother Jones

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