Beware of Bottled Tap Water

Bottled water may be free of pharmaceuticals and personal-care products. It depends on the source.

48 percent of the single-serve bottled water sold in stores in the United States in 2009 came from municipal water supplies (a town's or city's public tap water), found a 2010 analysis by Food & Water Watch.¹

We at Nicolet Forest Bottling Company know that about 70 percent of 5-gallon bottled water delivered to homes and businesses in the Chicago area is sourced from public water. (industry data is unavailable for this bottled-water category)

Watch For Purified Water Before bottling, most bottlers treat municipal water with distillation, deionization, reverse osmosis or other U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved processes that remove some chemicals and pathogens. This water may be labeled as purified water.

Purified water may not be free of all medications and personal-care products.
The federal government does not regulate pharmaceuticals and personal-care products in drinking water.
- Testing is not required.
- Safe limits for drugs in water have not been set.

Learn more about Types of Bottled Water

Know The Water You Drink: Consider The Source Learn where your drinking water comes from, how it is treated and what is in it. Ask to see the test results. It’s the only way to ensure you are drinking water free of drugs and personal-care products, like lotions, DEET and cosmetics.

Learn about Nicolet Natural Bottled Water, pristine artesian water from a protected aquifer, bottled at the source and delivered to you.

(2010, August) Bottling Our Cities’ Tap Water. Washington D.C.: Food & Water Watch. Retrieved from http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/MunicipalWater-IssueBrief.pdf