This process eradicates contaminants including metals, chlorine, fluoride, bacteria, and other microorganisms. After the filtration and purification process, Essentia Water is blended with alkaline electrolytes and ionized. Each bottle has a pH balance of 9.
The most popular option is the ounce bottle with a twist top. Aquafina drinking water is available almost anywhere. Every particle of water that ends up in Aquafina bottles undergoes a thorough 7-step purification process that uses reverse osmosis and other filtering methods.
This procedure effectively removes salts, chlorides, bacteria, and other substances. And the packaging is poor in quality and has little re-use value. The brand is committed to green practices. The company even sponsors its own foundation, the Voss Foundation, which provides access to clean drinking water in Sub-Saharan Africa. One thing that we love about VOSS water is the fact that it can be bought in a variety of packaging. The option of buying a reusable glass container makes this quite an environmentally-friendly choice.
Albeit an expensive one. This is the best bottled water in terms of flavor. It has a soft and smooth taste that will quench your thirst and keep you hydrated, with water directly from a natural source.
That source is an underground artesian aquifer in the Fijian Islands, in the middle of the South Pacific. The journey through the rock naturally imbues the water with natural silica and electrolytes, making it ideal for serious rehydration.
It has a pH level of 7. The company has a very green approach to conducting business, delivering a quality product that keeps customers hydrates in an eco-friendly and sustainable way.
This natural water is fresh and pure, with a pH of 8. Plus, the company pays a premium for the privilege of using this natural spring, paying 6x the municipal rate for use of the spring.
Shunning plastic, the company uses eco-friendly boxes to package their water. It offers all of the texture and feel of other carbonated waters but without any excess ingredients.
This wide range of flavors makes it an excellent choice for cocktails. Instead, it comes from a natural spring in an undisclosed location in Maine. Where is this spring? Poland Spring wraps their water in an environmentally-conscious bottle. The bottle is also fully recyclable too, so nothing will have to go to a landfill after use.
Poland Spring water bottles are available in a number of different sizes, but the ml is our favorite. If you want truly pure water, this one is as pure as you can get. There are no harmful minerals, silica, or heavy metals, and no bacteria either. Not only is the water completely natural, but Icelandic Glacial was officially the first bottled water company to be given the Carbon Neutral certification for all aspects of its production: from the actual product itself to the entire company operation.
The packaging is as environmentally-friendly as possible. So when he A second participant believed that bottled water was " better for babies " P15, Limited consumer , and the third person who ascribed a specific health benefit felt that bottled water could improve bone strength. However, as with many participants, they lacked conviction in their belief and were unable to explain their reasoning:.
I have no idea to be honest. The majority of participants associated bottled water with having fewer impurities than tap water, and were more likely to trust the quality of bottled water than tap water:. And filter it all out. Conversely, only two participants believed that tap water in the UK had either higher quality standards than bottled water or fewer impurities:. Despite their beliefs about the purity of bottled water, most participants expressed doubts as to the extent of the health benefits of bottled water compared with tap water:.
P12, Limited consumer. These views were not mutually exclusive with beliefs about health benefits, indeed most participants believed that bottled water did have health benefits, but that these benefits were negligible:.
I certainly wouldn't drink it for minerals that otherwise I wouldn't get. A minority of participants expressed concerns that drinking bottled water was detrimental to health.
One subject believed that the " actual process of putting it into the plastic bottle " P21, Limited consumer might impair the purity of the water and have a negative impact on consumers' health. Several other participants suggested a link between the plastic used for packaging and cancer. However, these concerns were about the repeated refilling of empty bottles with tap water rather than being about bottled water per se :. A number of participants believed that it was "not eco-friendly" P18, Non-consumer to use bottled water and expressed concerns about bottled water's "carbon footprint".
Some were concerned with the environmental impact of the plastic bottles:. I try to buy something from the UK so it's not flown over. When asked the reasons that may deter others from drinking bottled water, one person highlighted how topical the environmental issues were, by noting the impact of a recent BBC Panorama documentary:. Beliefs about the health benefits of bottled water emerged as a motivating factor influencing participants' decisions to drink bottled water in only a minority of cases, participants 5 and 11, both limited consumers:.
Interviewer - "Ok, and if we gave you a glass of tap water and a glass of mineral water and asked you to drink only one of them, which would you drink and why? Participant- "Um, the mineral water because it's gonna have more minerals in, it's gonna be fresher. However, most people were of the opinion that the tap water was fit for purpose and nobody expressed the view that they had reservations about the safety of tap water that were strong enough to prevent them from using it:.
Analysis revealed a number of other motivating factors that were unrelated to health beliefs. Convenience, taste and cost were almost universally important. The most commonly cited reason for purchasing bottled water was convenience:. Several participants described how they would buy bottled water as they preferred the "taste" of it to tap water:.
Other factors included preference over other soft drinks, influence of the media, influence of marketing and advertising, bottled water as a status symbol or as a luxury item and re-use of the bottle as a container for tap water. This study found that most people did hold health beliefs about bottled water, but that in the majority of cases these health beliefs were not strong motivating factors for purchasing bottled water. Other factors such as convenience, cost and taste emerged as far more important reasons for any preference for bottled water.
In addition, most participants felt that there was not a significant health benefit in drinking bottled water compared to tap water. From this, it is unlikely that the recent surge in bottled water consumption is due to beliefs about health benefits associated with bottled water. These results are important because until now, no qualitative studies have been conducted exploring public perceptions about bottled water and the factors that motivate people to buy it.
The findings complement previous quantitative studies that have been conducted in this area [ 10 — 13 ]. The qualitative approach of this study allowed for a deeper exploration of the themes that were used in the quantitative data, and also gave room for new themes, not covered in the top-down approach of the quantitative studies, to emerge. Convenience was a major motivating factor for buying bottled water, and one that has not been covered in previous quantitative studies.
This may be because the 'top-down' approach of questionnaire design did not include convenience as a category. It seems obvious that people who would normally drink tap water would be motivated to buy bottled water when tap water is unavailable, for example in a shopping centre, or at the cinema. Participants expressed health beliefs about bottled water that could be categorised as general health benefits or more specific health benefits.
Although this is the first study to identify health beliefs about bottled water, the review by Doria suggests that there is much interest in the subject in both the grey literature and in the peer-reviewed literature, where unsupported claims regarding consumer beliefs are easy to find [ 1 ].
For example, Petrie and Wessely claim that bottled water is seen as a "natural antidote" to all the things bad for their health due to modernity [ 17 ]. A major emergent health belief was that most people were satisfied with the quality of their tap water supply and that it would not pose an adverse risk to their health. This is consistent with the data from Mackey et al [ 10 ], which demonstrated high tap water satisfaction, even in groups who drank bottled water in preference to tap water.
Interestingly, whilst the majority of participants expressed the belief that bottled water has health benefits of some kind, paradoxically these same participants also stated that the health benefits of bottled water are negligible or non-existent.
This perhaps reflects confusion in the general public, as suggested by Olson [ 14 ], in that they only half-believe the marketing promoting health benefits of bottled water. Such marketing might also explain why many participants, whilst able to state health beliefs regarding bottled water, were unable to explain or qualify these.
The ability of marketing companies to create demand for bottled water "through the skilful use of language and image" has been discussed in a review of American culture [ 18 ]. This review suggests that in the public mind, purity, naturalness and healthiness are associated with bottled water through the specific marketing strategies of bottled water companies.
The following statements taken from the websites of two leading brands seem to support this suggestion:. Taste and feel the volvic difference, pure and natural There was some discrepancy between the specific health benefits participants believed bottled water to have and reality.
Participants often felt that bottled water had an increased mineral content compared to tap water and that this conferred a health benefit. An extensive study conducted in the USA by Azoulay et al [ 21 ] compared the mineral content of tap water in various areas and a number of commercially available American and European bottled waters. Some brands of mineral water do indeed have a higher mineral content than tap water, which was found to be generally low in minerals, and were recommended as important dietary sources of calcium and magnesium.
However, there is a considerable difference between bottled water brands, which no participant in our study seemed to be aware of. Furthermore, in the USA study, some mineral waters were actually found to have a lower mineral content than the tap water supply, so the belief that all bottled waters are superior to tap water in terms of mineral content is incorrect.
Although the study in question was conducted in the USA, the situation is likely to be similar in the UK. Moreover, whilst this study identified that some bottled waters provide a significant amount of the recommended daily intake for magnesium and calcium, none of these brands matched those that our participants drank.
Of these, the preferred brands expressed all fell into the low mineral content classification of bottled water except for one, which was classified as moderate mineral content [ 21 , 22 ]. It is also important to remember that these minerals can be obtained from other sources in the diet, so the health benefits of the minerals contained in bottled water are not exclusive to this source.
In addition, research shows that drinking waters with low mineral content does not lead to mineral deficiencies [ 23 ]. Where participants were able to give specific health benefits of bottled water we were not able to find supportive evidence in all cases. One participant believed that the symptoms of M. E were ameliorated by bottled water, which is something that existing literature does not appear to support. However, another participant mentioned that they felt that bottled water was especially benficial for babies.
Despite finding no recommendations for this practice, we were able to find one study which suggested that choosing a mineral water with low sodium content may be useful in preparing formula milk because a hyperosmolar diet has been linked to hypertension and obesity in later life [ 23 ]. Having said this, no evidence could be found to suggest that tap water was unsuitable for this purpose.
Safety has previously been identified as an important motivating factor for buying bottled water [ 10 — 13 ]. Indeed, this was a theme that emerged in this study. It is worth emphasising again that participants did not feel that UK tap water was unsafe.
Indeed the quality of this has continued to increase over the last 10 years [ 5 ], but participants still felt that bottled water was safer and purer when compared to tap water. Only one participant correctly stated that tap water was in fact subject to more stringent testing than bottled water in the European Union EU.
The European Directive on natural mineral water outlines standards for these waters [ 24 ]. This became UK law in [ 25 ]. Under these regulations natural mineral water cannot be sterilised or otherwise treated to destroy microorganisms.
Bottled water is not free of microorganisms as some might believe and this has been demonstrated by numerous studies [ 4 , 26 — 28 ]. Although European regulations are considered more rigorous than those in the USA [ 26 ], natural mineral waters are only tested every two months by independent laboratories, compared to tap water which is tested every two days in urban areas [ 5 ].
In addition, quality controls for tap waters are based on 62 parameters, compared to only 26 for mineral waters [ 5 ]. Doria notes that whilst there have been outbreaks of disease attributable to tap water, such as in Sydney in , which led to an increase in bottled water sales, bottled water is not without similar events. The well-known brand Perrier was contaminated with benzene in and in , Coca-Cola withdrew Dasani, its own bottled water, due to concerns about the levels of a potential carcinogen in the water [ 1 , 29 ].
A number of participants expressed concerns about a link between the plastic container of bottled water and cancer. A carcinogenic substance known as DEHA di-ethylhexl adipate is indeed used in the manufacture of PET polyethylene terephthalate , a plastic used to manufacture most bottled water containers [ 27 ]. Although not true, the concerns held by participants about the plastic bottles are not irrational and replicate concerns that other people seem to have.
For example, in a hoax e-mail circulated in the USA, attributed to Johns Hopkins University, suggesting that the plastic used to manufacture the containers for bottled water contained harmful dioxins, which is untrue [ 31 ]. Almost a third of participants expressed concerns over the environmental impact of bottled water.
These concerns mirror recent media interest in the subject [ 7 — 9 ]. These concerns included comments about the 'carbon footprint' created by the transport of imported bottled water.
A Earth Policy Institute study found that the British bottled water industry generates about 30, tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, which was estimated to equal the energy consumption of 6, homes per year [ 32 ].
The environmental impact of the plastic bottles themselves in their production and disposal was also mentioned by some participants. Packaging is generally made from plastics, either polyvinylchloride PVC or PET; the latter is becoming widely used as it is easier to recycle than PVC and does not release chlorine when burnt [ 5 ].
In the USA, annual production of PET to meet the needs of the bottled water industry uses around 18 million barrels of oil [ 32 ], which is a finite resource. This study has several limitations. Selection bias may have occurred in that the participants in the study had both the time available and the inclination to take part. This might mean that those with particularly strong views on the issue were more likely to volunteer, but this does not appear to have been borne out in our results.
Availability bias may have occurred in that the issues surrounding bottled water can quite feasibly change over time and certain factors may become transiently important [ 34 ]. An example would be negative health beliefs about tap water as a motivating factor to purchase bottled water following media reports of contamination of the supply. The fact that all of the participants in this study had connections with the Munrow sports centre, and the majority were employed by or studying at the University of Birmingham, has implications for the generalisability of the findings of this study.
Hence, the results may not be applicable to people who are unemployed or not in full time education, or people who are not sports centre users. Repetition of the study with a sample more representative of the general population may therefore be of value. Respondent validation may have proved useful since respondents' reactions to emerging findings can help to refine explanations and can strengthen the rigor of thorough qualitative research [ 35 ]. A number of issues arise from this study which may warrant further research.
Namely the link between marketing strategies for bottled water and their role in creating health beliefs in the general public. It would also be interesting to see if it is possible to identify people who drink exclusively bottled water and question them about their reasons for this and their health beliefs about bottled water. Such information could then be compared with the results of this study to determine whether people who only drink bottled water are motivated to buy it by the same factors as the participants in this study, and the role of health beliefs within this.
Finally, given the lack of knowledge about the purification process and safety of tap water in the UK found by this study, it could be useful to further educate the public with regard to the safety of tap water considering the prevalence of concerns arising that appear to be unfounded. The participants of this study had a range of health beliefs about bottled water which could be classified as general and specific benefits. Participants also held a number of beliefs about the impact the bottled water industry has on the environment.
Although the majority of participants believed that bottled water had some health benefits, these beliefs played a minor role in determining bottled water consumption and are unlikely to be helpful in explaining the recent trends in bottled water consumption. The health beliefs that participants held were supported by scientific evidence to varying extents.
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Earth Policy Institute. Regional household recycling and municipal recovery rates. Klein JG: Five pitfalls in decisions about diagnosis and prescribing. Barbour RS: Checklist for improving rigor in qualitative research: a case of tail wagging the dog?. Download references. The authors would like to thank all of the participants of this research. They would also like to thank the University of Birmingham and the Munrow Sports Centre for allowing the recruitment of participants on the University campus and the University of Birmingham Medical School for allowing the use of their facilities.
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Sheila M Greenfield. SG conceived of the study, provided support and advice to the other authors at all stages and was involved with redrafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Additional file 1: Socio-demographic backgrounds of the participants.
A table presenting the socio-demographic backgrounds of the participants. DOC 45 KB. Additional file 2: Themes identified in analysis and participants who contributed to these themes.
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