Aquafina to spell out water source

I suppose the manufacturers can claim (correctly) that it is the reverse osmosis process that is significant not the source. The claim is never made that it is spring water and the process is always identified. The real problem is that people don't seem to realise that most urban water supplies are fine and the water is often safer than bottled water.
We use untreated water from a community well but it is tested for safety. It does have a distinct taste that some people do not like. I just drink it out of the tap but my wife prefers the reverse osmosis water that we buy in 18.9 liter jugs and refill. I found the water in Brampton (metro Toronto) Regina and Brandon fine just out of the tap. It always amazes me why so many insist on buying bottled water when they are paying a hefty amount to get water piped right into their houses.
One good thing about all the bottled water is that I think many people buy it rather than pop when on the road.

Aquafina labels to spell out tap water source
Water originates from public reservoirs
Last Updated: Friday, July 27, 2007 | 4:52 PM ET
CBC News
The U.S. manufacturer of Aquafina bottled water will soon revise the product's label to clearly show the drink is made with treated tap water.


Water for Aquafina made in Canada is drawn from public sources in Vancouver and Mississauga, Ont.
(CBC)
Aquafina bottles sold in the U.S. are now labelled "PWS," but the new labels will spell this out as "Public Water Source," the brand's owner PepsiCo said on Friday.

A bottle of Aquafina sold in Canada currently shows the source as "water from the public distribution of Mississauga [Ont.]," but the company said it also uses a public source of water in Vancouver.

The bottler of the water in Canada, Pepsi-QTG [Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade] said on Friday that it's reviewing the U.S. label change and will be making a decision shortly as to whether the Canadian label needs to be revised.

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The Boston-based group Corporate Accountability International had for months been pressuring the New York-based company to change its Aquafina label.

The group said PepsiCo was guilty of misleading marketing practices to "turn water from a natural resource into a pricey consumer item."

"If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do," PepsiCo spokeswoman Michelle Naughton said on Friday.

Corporate Accountability International is also pressing for similar concessions from Coca-Cola, which owns the Dasani water brand.

"We don't believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water," Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante told the Associated Press. "The label clearly states that it is purified water."

Both companies use reverse osmosis, a procedure that forces water through a membrane with very small holes.

People can buy their own reverse osmosis units, but the method is not water-efficient, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). A lot of the water that passes through, unless it's collected for other uses, goes down the drain.

In some cases, where water is already free of dissolved solids, two litres of water may be needed to produce one litre of finished water, the CHMC says. In other cases, four or five litres of water may be used to produce one litre of filtered water.

With files from the Associated Press