EWG's Bottled Water Research & Advocacy

Americans drink twice as much bottled water today as they did ten years ago. One would think that purity would be included at a price, that, at a typical cost of $3.79 per gallon, is 1,900 times the cost of public tap water. But EWG’s ground-breaking studies have documented how, when it comes to bottled water, consumers don’t know what they are getting.

To the contrary, our tests strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted. Given the industry's refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.

Until the federal Food and Drug Administration cracks down on water bottlers, use EWG’s What’s in My Bottled Water guide to find brands with high scores for disclosing full water source, treatment and quality and that use advanced treatment methods to remove a broad range of pollutants.

The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but EWG’s comprehensive testing reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including two brands that exceeded legal limits.