The bottled water industry peddles their product with care. Their hidden, and increasingly not so hidden message, is that you can't trust tap water. They are marketing mistrust - don't buy it.
Tap water in the UK is one of the highest quality tap waters in the world. Testing by the Drinking Water Inspectorate in 2006 reported that 99.96% of 4.5 million samples tested passed water quality sampling.
When Decanter magazine conducted a blind tasting of 24 water brands, Thames tap water came in third.
Tap water is great value for money, providing 50 glasses for a penny.
In fact, tap water is such good value for money that over 25% of bottled water is taken from the mains supply, filtered and flogged back to the general public with a markup of 3000%.
Mori research in 2004 reported that 7 in 10 drink tap water on its own and up to 90% of us happily drink tap water either on its own or mixed with other drinks.
Tap water uses 0.3% of the energy needed to produce bottled water, without creating the waste.
In the USA, tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, whereas the the FDA has a somewhat more relaxed view of bottled water suppliers, using less stringent criteria.
