Depending on what type of bottled water we are looking at, there are several places that bottled water can come from.
According to an article on PBS’s website titled “What’s in Your Bottle?” “About 25% of the bottled water sold in the United States comes from a municipal water source” (Mauleon).
Water drawn from municipal sources must be treated to a certain degree by bottling companies according to FDA guidelines, and most bottling companies like Aquafina and Dasani go beyond these guidelines in order to make their water taste the best and stand out.
There are other types of water as well: artesian water, mineral water, sparkling water, spring water, and well water. All of these different types of water are drawn up from an underground source, from various levels. The differences in these types of water are basically the level at which they’re drawn from and what is in the water, either naturally occurring or synthetically. Artesian water comes from an aquifer, or naturally occurring source of water, that lies beneath typical well aquifers. Mineral water has to contain at least 250 parts per million of total dissolved solids (TDS). These parts are naturally occurring in most mineral waters. Sparkling water has naturally dissolved CO2 in its composition, and this CO2 can be artificially added up to levels that would be present at the source. Spring water comes from a source underground that naturally flows to the surface and well water comes from a hole drilled into the ground to tap into an aquifer that lies above aquifers for artesian water.
The biggest geological effect of how these waters are acquired has to be where come from. After doing a small amount of research, I’ve found that a good portion of the water for products comes from places that are either in mild or desperate need of water. An article by Julia Lurie shows that a few of the most popular spring and municipal bottled water companies draw water from sources in the U.S. that are typical areas of severe drought.
Not only in the U.S. is water being drawn from sources that need it more, but water access is also being restricted globally from those who are in desperate need of it. An article by Daniel Jaffe and Soren Newman quotes Maude Barlow: “water from poor communities in the global South to sell to rich markets in the global North.” Jaffe and Newman go on to refute that a lot of that bottled water remains in the South. A reason this bottled water remains in the south is due to the lack of municipal water infrastructure and this seems to be a hinderance on the lives on the people in these globally South areas. Prices of bottled water fluctuate far more on bottled water than municipal water, and this turns the lives of people from these poorer communities into a guessing game when it comes to being able to rely on a (now) commodity that is so fundamental in their lives.
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