60 second guide to... Bottled water

Water glasses: Bottled water and the environment

The mayor of San Francisco has banned it, some restaurants are shunning it and now green campaigners are trying to get Brits to ditch it too – but is bottled water really that harmful to the planet?

  • Q:

    How big is the bottled water industry?

  • A:

    There are now more than 200 brands of bottled water available. These range from the most popular varieties like Evian, Volvic and Highland Spring, to supermarket own brands and smaller independent ‘ethical’ labels.

    You can even get exotic and very expensive (up to £50 a litre) bottles of water from places as far flung as Fiji.

    In the UK, we drink more than two billion litres of bottled water each year and experts predict this will rise by 9 per cent year-on-year for the next five years. Danone owns bestsellers Volvic and Evian, and Nestle owns Vittel and Buxton. Between them and the supermarkets, they own about 70 per cent of the market.

    The global water industry is worth about £50bn, with at least £2bn of that accounted for in the UK.

  • Q:

    What's wrong with bottled water?

  • A:

    The main complaint from green campaigners is the amount of energy used to create and ship bottles around the globe. About three quarters of these bottles (those disposed of in the UK) end up in landfill, where they take hundreds of years to decompose. Critics would also prefer we buy from water companies that bottle and sell their product in the UK, unlike Evian and Volvic, which export much of their stock worldwide.

    Other criticisms levied at the bottled water industry include companies selling purified tap water rather spring water. Sourcing water from countries whose population do not have easy access to clean water also raises ethical concerns.

  • Q:

    What is the 'greenest' kind of bottle?

  • A:

    This is a hotly debated issue - most companies use PET, a plastic which virtually every local authority in England now collects for recycling. A number of brands have also reduced the weight of their PET containers from around 25g to 17g over the past 15 years.

    Other companies are trying to introduce more recycled plastic into their bottles, known as post consumer recycled (PCR) plastic. Ribena has created a PCR plastic bottle, but no water company appears to have claimed to use this in their bottles yet.

    Duncan Goose, founder of ONE Water, is looking at using PCR plastic mixed with PET in its bottles, but the availability of this material is low in the UK. He also says the material needs more energy to mould it than PET.

    Belu water introduced a biodegradable cornstarch bottle this year that was meant to go in to the home compost heap. But it was found that the bottles didn’t break down very well and the company is now encouraging recycling firms to take the bottle for plastics recycling.

    Research is also being done on other types of biodegradable bottles made from a variety of materials, including sugar beet.

    There appears to be no clear-cut view on whether glass or plastic is the more eco-friendly container, with the government’s Waste and Resources Action Programme saying it doesn’t favour either material over the other as a greener option.

  • Q:

    Is bottled water better for us?

  • A:

    The majority of ‘experts’, including the World Health Organisation and the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, say there are no more health benefits in bottled water compared with tap. Tap water is also much cheaper to produce and uses far less energy.

    If you want to know what’s in your tap water, take a look at your water supplier’s website. If you want to remove chlorine or copper from your water, this can be done with a filter that fits onto your tap and costs about £50-100. Alternatively, you can buy standard filters. These need changing regularly but they can now be recycled. Brita, for example, have created recycling points in several department stores. Find your nearest one here.

  • Q:

    Are some bottled waters better than others?

  • A:

    If you want to drink bottled water, arguably the greenest option would be one that is made and bottled in the UK.

    In the past few years, a number of ‘socially responsible water brands such as Belu, ONE, Frank and Thirsty Planet have sprung up around the UK. They generally only distribute in the UK and use their profits to fund clean water projects in developing countries – through organisations like Playpumps.