In the United States, bottled water is regulated only by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and therefore is not held to the same standards that prevent bacterial and chemical contaminants as tap water, which is enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A table on the differences between bottled and tap water presented by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) shows that bottled water possesses the threat of bacterial and chemical contaminants because, unlike tap water, disinfection is not required. The table also shows that bottlers are not required to remove pathogens through a filtering method or use a protected source and testing for synthetic organic chemicals is only required once a year. If the bottled water is not consumed and rather reintroduced into the environment, it runs the risk of allowing the bacteria and chemicals to reach other water supplies.
In February of 2010, Harvard University reported that the United States used 50-billion plastic water bottles in 2009. Adding to the excessive waste, the packaging of bottled water leads to the release of toxic emissions into the atmosphere during the production of the packaging, such as polyethylene terephthalate from the most commonly used PET bottles. The Sierra Club cites information from the Berkley Ecology Center that 100 times the amount of toxic emissions that are emitted into the atmosphere during PET bottle production than that of glass bottle production.
Unlike the water pumped into your home from a local water supply, bottled water must be transported in some form, whether it is by a boat, train, plane, semi-truck or car. Each time the bottles of water are transported pollutants are released into the air from CO2 emissions. Though a discussion paper on bottled water from the University of Colorado at Boulder reports that 75 percent of bottled water is bottled and distributed locally, there is still the matter of the water requiring transport from the bottling location, to warehouse, to store and then to your home. Those are three unnecessary trips required to drink water that is available in most homes in the United States.
The production of bottled water consumes energy from the beginning moments of processing until you consume the water. The Pacific Institute estimates that it took the equivalent of more than 17-million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bottles consumed by Americans in 2006. These numbers do not include the energy used to process the water or transport the water after production.
The Sierra Club claims that when the suppliers filling the bottles of water use the commodity in increased amounts, it can deplete the local water supply for those using wells in rural areas as well as damage area wet lands and cause a threat to local lakes.
All of the previous negative effects of bottle water impact wildlife, but marine wildlife are particularly threatened by the use of bottled water, as the Center for Marine Conservation list plastic bottles as one of the 12 most frequent debris found during coastal cleanups. Not only do the plastic bottles contaminate the water of the oceans, they float on the surface causing many types of marine wildlife to mistake the materials for food. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution report of a 50 percent decrease in Northern Fur Seals from 1970 to 2000 is a strong indication of the impact that harmful materials, like bottles for water, have on the wildlife.