Talk:Bottled water

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Main issues: Worldwide perspective, references in terms of citation needed tags and inconsistent use of inline and external links

Contents

[edit] History of bottled water?

I came to this page in an attempt to learn something about the rise of bottled water and there's nothing here about it. Could somebody write about this? 99.246.131.234 18:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Health aspects of drinking purified water

There is a common understanding that drinking a lot of purified water can be bad for you (ostensibly because it will absorb minerals that would otherwise be consumed by your body). However, I could only find one clear article describing this and it is widely disseminated, by Zoltan P. Rona MD, MSc. Unfortunately the vast majority of the web sites that contain this article are trying to sell water purifiers or water itself and therefore are suspect sources of material. Can anyone provide information about whether drinking purified water is good or bad for you in the short or long-term and add to this article? -- S. Gartner talk 02:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Pure" Water is Undefined

I've read the article titled There's No Such Thing as Pure Water, and I realize it's written by a biased ecologist working for a water purification company; however, he makes a very good point that there is a misconception about the word "pure" applied to water. Water is an acid and naturally bonds with other chemicals to reach a level of neutrality that is safe for consumption. The Wikipedia article makes multiple mentions of pure water with no apparent understanding that you can't just have a bottle with only H2O in it. For example, the line "Even if the water itself is pure, a plastic container may leak chemicals into the bottled water," gives the impression that such a pure water exists. Is there an expert that can clarify this in the article? Lackthereof 19:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Water is not an acid unless you're referring to acid rain. Water has a pH of 7, which is neutral. Steelseal 21:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bias Against Bottled Water

Great to see such an informative, objective and un-biased article *rolleyes*

What are your objections? RickK 22:44, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this article conforms to a high standard, it seems very biased against bottled water. The whole tone of the article is anti-bottled water. As well as that, it needs some tidying. - Joolz

Statements such as I don't think and it seems are personal views. Unless you can be more specific and back up your feelings I suggest we drop the NPOV tag. The points made on the unhealthy aspects of bottled water and the controls of it is backed up by links and much published articles in the past (such as the uranium and benzene contaminated bottled water).
I posted that months ago (before I learnt how to tag my name on the end ;) The NPOV tag was added today, and not by me. Also, you may note that I talked about the tone of the article. You may also notice I've outlined some of the problems I've had with this article below, which have been resolved now. -- Joolz 16:11, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I second this. This article has a very strong bias against bottled water.

It opens with an extensive section about the negative environmental effects of bottled water. This is followed by a "Marketing" section that has nothing to do with marketing. Penn & Teller's test is another of their many attempts to make the general public look stupid, and has no place in an encyclopedia.

The article mentions the potential health benefits of bottled water, but quickly clarifies that this is pseudoscience. It proceeds to mention that bottled water costs 10,000 times the price of tap water. This is a misperspective. People who buy bottled water aren't paying for the water, they're paying for the service of having it purified (in some cases) and put in a bottle.

The "Regulations" section is a blatant attack on the FDA's regulation of bottled water, and then mentions that, "ironically", tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water.

The writers of this article are clearly people who pride themselves on drinking tap water, since about 75% of this article is anti-bottled water propaganda. This article needs a large overhaul.

--LocrialTheSequel 19:02, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you create an article called Anti-Bottled-water-ism? Then you can create the Bottled-Water-Driking-Wikipedians' Notice Board, and go through Wikipedia with a fine-toothed comb subtly changing the wording of various articles to paint Bottled Water in a more positive light. Colonel Mustard 03:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Source about Evian

Is there any source to the "fact" that Evian water sold in the US is actually made from US springs? How about Perrier? David.Monniaux 09:25, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the UK Evian bottles are labelled as from "Cachat Spring - S.A.E.M.E - 74500 Evian - FRANCE". It seems unlikely that they would source their supplies for the US market at a different spring for a whole range of reasons. Namely, the taste of the water simply wouldn't be the same, people would be able to tell the difference. It wouldn't seem to be in Evian's interests to use a different source for the US market. This claim seems to be completely unsubstantiated. - Joolz

Having done some research I can't find anything to substantiate the claim as of yet. I'm also wary of the claim that because it's a French company any product it produces, regardless of where it is produced, can be labelled as a 'product of France'. For instance, Nokia phones are often produced in Hungary, and as such are labelled 'Made in Hungary', even though it is a Finnish company. I'm not sure about the regulations in the US though. Also, the statement "a lot of the bottled water is actually very close to tap water." needs explanation. Close in what way exactly? In seems to stand to reason that there will be a number of similarities, considering the fact that they're both essentially water products. - Joolz


Does this help? http://www.bottledwaterweb.com/bottlersdetail.do?k=41

[edit] Different Tastes

You say that Evian would not produce differently tasting water marketed for different countries.

You may want to note that Cadbury produces different tasting chocolate worldwide based on the taste pallete of the respective consumer country.


From the web site www.mineralwaters.org you can choose a list of bottled water by country, where you will also find Evian mineralization table, there are two with different structures and total dissolved solids, this is a clear indication that two different springs are used in bottling Evian.

That is simply not enough evidence to back up such claims, according to Evian all their water comes from France. That isn't to say that they don't have two sources very nearby, and there can be a variety of reasons why there are two different types listed on that site. The site does not explain why, and you've simply leapt to a conclusion.
I'm going to remove the claim because it is unsubstantiated, and quite possibly libelous.
-- Joolz 23:32, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Let's kill this fad shall we? :) SD6-Agent 14:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

umm...I don't really know if you guys agree, but this doesn;t sound very neutral. From the dawn of humanity? exgeratted

for thousands of years, people have been making deliberate use of the fact that water flows downhill all by itself. [1] [2] For some hundreds of years, technology has existed to pump water under pressure on a wide scale, enabling it to be stored at altitude, and self-feed under gravity on-demand [3]. This practice has become so wide-spread in the English-speaking world, that the phrase 'on-tap' has become synonymous with'on-demand'.

Putting it into little containers and lugging it around is comparitively inefficient, both in terms of energy and time. This has been known since the dawn of humanity, when we drank from natural pipes and reservoirs known as rivers, lakes, and wells. It is these same natural pipes, which have supported earth's life since the very dawn of time, that are becoming poisoned and polluted by the plastics we discard, and the chemicals and residue from production and shipping of the plastic bottles which contain the bottled water which now enamours so many.

The pointer outer 02:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, that section has no place in an encyclopaedia --Sophistifunk 04:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I added the NPOV check template to this page, it seems to my eyes to be very biased against the bottled water industry, and sometimes industry as a whole. If someone with more experience could edit this to make it NPOV, that would be great.--24.123.252.46 22:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I attempted to clean out all the, uh, "irrelevant" bits of the article that may have caused it to be tagged NPOV. I would like to see the original tagger have a look at the modified article. ;) --68.51.221.64 22:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Large relevent sections have been removed by someone under the guise of "NPOV". This happens so frequently on so many wikimedia pages that I don't have the heart to restore the article. Simply be warned that the page does not contain all that is true, and possibly even some of what it contains is untrue. Use the history feature yourself to uncover what has been written on the subject of bottled water, and decide for yourself. This should be boiler plate material in big letters superimposed over every wikimedia page, but until then, good bye and good luck. -- Joojabber 11:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV, first world centric

perhaps this is a 'no duh' comment, but everything on this page appears to be written from the prospective of someone with computer access; that is, someone who has access, at all times, to potable water, just a few steps away at thier sink. just some food for thoght. Pellaken 00:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The person who performed wholesale slaughter of several sections (March 7-ish revisions), Joojabber, was me.

The sections in question were removed because some sections were irrelevant, but in most cases, simply not NPOV. You're free to add them back in a form that is not with bias slant, or peppered with the opinions of the editor--this is one of the powerful benefits of a user-editable encylopedia like Wikipedia. However, we as a community -- people using this resource, and people contributing to it -- should put forth our best effort to ensure that articles are of the best quality possible. This means that we have to be able to put on the NPOV hat when we're writing an article, even if it's about something we hate or loathe.

If that's not possible, it is for the best interests of everyone involved that anyone unable to perform NPOV edits simply step aside for someone else to do the grunt work, while mentioning that there are sections in particular that are wrong, but that you are unable to make modifications to these sections yourself for fear of conveying a biased point of view.

So, what I'm trying to say is, please don't use Wikipedia as a political tool. I understand that it could be considered a mouth-watering target, as it could be hours or days before someone modifies the article again (with who knows how many hits between article modifications), but such actions have the potential to devalue the great, exciting service Wikipedia offers.

Please put your best foot forward, everyone! ;) --68.51.221.64 06:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV, good idea/still needs help

Bottled water is a very contentious topic, and there are many both good and bad aspects to it. A "neutral" article can be both negative and positive, so long as it is honest.

I will try to redo parts of this over time -- I direct an independent research institute working on water (wiki Pacific Institute). I've taken a crack at the first sections, which now should be far more "NPOV." Comments welcome. PGleick 04:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leave it Be or Even it Out

Don't cut out facts because they tip the scale. I read the article & nothing jumped out as anti-bottle watter; it merely points out disbenefits. Instead of whining, why don't you add an equal amount of benefits.

[edit] Taste

What about adding some information on taste tests, which have often shown that tap water is preferred. CoolGuy 18:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

This article has many citations and that's good, but the citations ought to use the Wikipedia footnotes. I've taken the few with descriptions and thrown them in <ref> ... </ref>'s. This needs to happen with the rest. — Mobius 04:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improper use of Wikipedia page

I have removed the following from the article, as it is clear in an edit at the Village Pump that the user who added it is attempting to use the article as a web server to store his data: Corvus cornix 21:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bottled Water Investigation

Environmental Working Group [1] is launching a new investigation into bottled water--where it comes from, what's done to "purify" it, and if it's even worth the expense. We need help building our label database, so if you've got any water bottles handy we'd appreciate it if you took a few minutes to add your information to the list below.

Please note: Since we'll be dumping the contents of the list into a database at some point, we need the fields to be consistent and as typo-free as possible. We're open to comments and suggestions on improving our methods.

List removed. Since it is inappropriate to add original research to Wikipedia, I can't how conducting original research on Wikipedia is any better. Set up a wiki on your own site. - BanyanTree 20:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't set up your own wiki! We have a wiki for original research, Wikiversity. It is looking for potential research ideas. --Rayc 21:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stored Water (non natural way) & Global Warming

Hi, I was just reading the Water entry and saw the quantity of water available on earth (1.4 billion cubic kilometers), and just was wondering if some of you have the number of liters of stored water in those companies which sell water or drinks?

Could this be also a factor to the global warming?, who knows... just wondering.

regards, Ramon Mata



Please tell me this person is kidding.

[edit] Broken Link in References

The 3rd link under references is broken.155.247.166.28 08:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

 Fixed the link with a new link. Erm, I don't think I'm making much sense. It's a new link that redirects you the article itself. Check it out if interested :)GabrielPere 05:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FDA names of Different types of water

The FDA website mentions 8 different type of waters, while Wiiki has 9. The extra one is the Fluoridated water. Here is the link to the FDA website: 21 CFR Part 165.110 - Bottled Water

[edit] Distilled Water Inaccuracy & Suggested Addition

I suggest this section be reworded to be more applicable to the article:

"Bottled water processed with distillation or reverse osmosis lacks fluoride ions which are sometimes naturally present in groundwater, or added at a water treatment plant and which has an effect on the inhibition of cavity formation; the drinking of distilled water may conceivably increase the risk of tooth decay due to a lack of this element."

Sure many bottled waters are distilled to remove impurities, but I don't know of any company that sells distilled water for use as consumption (minerals are added). For anyone who has tried, distilled water tastes horrible and I'm pretty sure it's not safe for consumption in large quantities. If no one drinks distilled bottled water, than who cares if it increases tooth decay? Distilled water ≠ bottled water.


I think it would be interesting if a section would be posted that listed how the water of major brands is manufactured. Many brands are distilled (aka deionized), undergo reverse osmosis, or are simply pumped from the ground, but I'm assuming they all aren't the same. It might be noted that all water that is distilled or RO'd is essentially 99.999% the same, whether it came from the well of the gods or a sewage plant. The list might also show which methods resulted in water not achieving government quality tests. Did straight well water (artesian springs, etc) cause the contamination or was it the manufacturers' fault. I personally think these are important things to know. Maybe unadulterated Fiji water, that was transported halfway around the world, didn't pass the inspection because it wasn't purified?

People think water from different locations on the earth is special. This article should reinforce that all water is the same. H20 is H20, the only difference is the additives...which any factory can supply or remove. Hopefully we can save people money and a bit of the earth by letting people know specialty water in a neat little square bottle has no real value over water distilled from urine. LostCause 01:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear

"Many believe that bottled water is no better than tap water and that home water filtration may also be a viable option." Does this statement refer to the microbial and/or chemical quality of the water? Or to its aesthetic qualities? And who are the "many"!? Research done in the UK and Finland has confirmed that microbial and chemical quality of bottled water may be worse than tap water from public supplies in both of those countries - this is based on the standards and the frequency of checks, although I am keen to see reports on this that actually quantify the difference. Parametric chemical and microbiological standards in Europe for bottled water are generally lower than those for tap water. As for aesthetics (taste, colour, odour etc.), blind tastings of chilled bottled and tap water frequently indicate that consumers cannot consistently tell the difference between the two, particularly if the tap water has been left to stand for a few minutes to allow for the evaporation of any residual chlorine. Jimjamjak (talk) 16:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Filters in plumbing system...

"Many countries such as the United Kingdom, have water that is adequate for drinking on tap, due to filters in the plumbing infrastructure."

I am considering deleting this sentence. I don't understand what this claim is referring to. Water that emerges from a water supplier's treatment plant is entirely fit for drinking. Nothing in the distribution system increases the quality of this water. Residual chlorine is likely to decrease with time (and therefore distance) in the distribution system, disinfection by-products may increase or decrease in concentration as they move through the system (the same for microbes, metals and other pollutants), but this has nothing to do with "filters in the plumbing infrastructure". Jimjamjak (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)