Pepsi admits Aquafina comes from tap water
It’s a great marketing gimmick: A bottle of water with a clean, blue label showing images of snow-capped mountains and the claim, “Pure water, perfect taste.” That’s the image created by Pepsico’s Aquafina brand of water, and many consumers leap to the incorrect conclusion that Aquafina is sourced from mountain spring water.
In reality, Aquafina comes from tap water. Yes, the same water you get when you turn on your kitchen faucet. Of course, Aquafina is filtered, purified and perhaps even enhanced with trace amounts of added minerals, but it’s certainly not mountain spring water. It’s just processed tap water — the same stuff that fills your toilet bowl when you flush.
Both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the FDA believe there’s really no need to require bottled water manufacturers to admit their products come from tap water. No surprise there — both these organizations routinely act to protect the interests of powerful corporations, and when it comes to bottled water, the biggest companies are often those sourcing the lowest quality water (such as tap water).
This idea that consumers should not be informed their high-priced bottled water is really just filtered tap water is consistent with the aims of food, drug and beverage corporations, who almost universally agree that consumers should be given less information, not more, about the products they’re swallowing. Over the last several decades, corporations have vigorously opposed truth in labeling laws and regulations, including those requiring the labeling of trans fatty acids, sodium content and even ingredients lists! (If the food corporations had their way, all ingredients would be considered “proprietary formulas” and not listed on the label at all.)
This bottled water issue brings to light the apparent deceptive practices of some of the largest suppliers of bottled water products. By avoiding the honest labeling of the source of their water while relying on snow-capped mountain imagery, these companies quietly mislead consumers into thinking their water products are from a pristine, natural source such as a mountain spring.
CAI pressures PepsiCo to tell the truth
PepsiCo only agreed to tell the truth on their bottled water labels after being pressured by Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a non-profit organization that helps protect consumers from corporate abuse. See their website at http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org
CAI rallied consumers from around the world to complain to PepsiCo about the current labeling of Aquafina, and thousands of consumers slammed PepsiCo’s phone lines so hard that the company was forced to shut down call center operations. CAI told NewsTarget that within 30 minutes after the call-to-action announcement went live, PepsiCo’s consumer phone lines were no longer being answered and would not allow callers to leave voice mails. Pepsi executives reportedly held an emergency meeting and made a decision to add the phrase, “Public water source” to Aquafina labels.
Reluctantly admitting a small part of the truth
Even then, the phrase “public water source” isn’t very descriptive. To some people, the phrase simply implies that Aquafina is itself a public water source. It’s not the same as admitting, “Aquafina comes from tap water,” which would be a far more honest way to label the product. But PepsiCo seems to have no interest in advertising the source of their Aquafina product, and my guess is that the “public water source” text on the label will be really small and difficult to read. It’s much like the labeling of side effects of prescription drugs: They bury the bad news somewhere that most consumers won’t ever look.
Aquafina is currently the top-selling bottled water brand in the United States. According to CAI, 4 out of 5 consumers now drink bottled water, and 1 out of 5 drink it as their sole water source! (Gee, that’s a lot of plastic going to landfill, too…)
The bottles used to package bottled water are almost always made from plastics containing bisphenol-A (BPA), a carcinogenic chemical that often leaches into the water and gets swallowed by consumers. Click here to read our articles on BPA, a chemical widely believed to contribute to certain cancers. This contamination factor, however, is true for all products stored in plastic bottles, not merely water. Sports drinks, sodas, fruit drinks and even “healthy” smoothie drinks packaged in plastic all share a common risk of BPA contamination.
Bottled water vs. public water infrastructure
The widespread shift towards bottled water products is increasingly causing consumers to lose faith in public water infrastructure, which ultimately leads to public reluctance to support investment in public water supplies. This concerns many cities who are worried that a lack of public support will cause funding for water infrastructure to erode.
These people tend to describe treated municipal water as remarkably pristine and safe for human consumption. In my opinion, however, tap water should never be swallowed without filtering it, since tap water contains scary levels of toxic chemicals such as chlorine and fluoride, a dangerous water additive chemical often contaminated with arsenic. (Click here to learn the truth about water fluoridation.)
So I wouldn’t drink from the public water supply in the first place, but neither do I rely on bottled water. I use a water filtration system to clean tap water before I drink it. (Coincidentally, this is similar to what PepsiCo does when creating Aquafina water, except PepsiCo uses plastic bottles, where I only drink out of glass or stainless steel.)
You can get clean public water in places like Hawaii, Oregon and anywhere that’s close to the mountains, but most folks in first world nations are getting tap water that’s far from pristine. The public water infrastructure in the U.S. may be among the best in the world, but that’s not saying much. I won’t even shower in U.S. public water without using a chlorine filter on my shower head. (Recommended brand: Aquasana at http://www.aquasana.com )