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The first bottled water in the United States was sold in the 1760s in Boston when it was sold as mineral water by Jackson's Spa.
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Although bottled water such as the famous Perrier brand has existed for many years in Europe, Americans consume more bottled water each year. IN fact North America and South America and Asia are the fastest growing consumers of bottled water.
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Bottled water is much more expensive than tap water, but it is often the same water. It costs one-tenth a cent in California for a gallon of tap water, but bottled water is $0.90 cents a gallon.
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In order to drive up consumer spending on bottled water the companies selling bottled water have been using bad publicity against tap water to make people fear what comes out of their taps.
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Approximately half of the bottled water consumed is derived from the same water that flows from people's taps at home.
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Unlike tap water, bottled water does not have to meet FDA regulations for testing for e. coli.
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Substances that have been found in bottled water that are known to be dangerous to humans include arsenic, too much fluoride, too much coliform bacteria, and too much of other bacteria than is allowed under purity guidelines.
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Taste tests have shown that tap water tends to rank higher for taste when compared to a variety of different types of bottled water.
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When manufacturing a bottle that will be used to store water, it takes three times the water that the bottle can hold to manufacture the bottle itself.
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Of the 30 billion plus water bottles that were sold in the U.S in the year 2005, only 12% of those bottles were recycled. The rest went to the garbage.
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Bottled water companies make a lot of their money selling bottled water to countries where safe drinking water is not always available - and they sell it at prices often higher than soft drinks.
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It can take as long as 1000 years for a plastic water bottle to decompose when thrown out instead of being recycled.
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The amount of oil used (17 million barrels) to manufacture the plastic water bottles used each year could provide gas for one million cars for a year.
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Water vending machines are becoming popular in many countries, allowing people to fill their own water jugs and stop buying the little single serve water bottles.
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