By Tiffany Stecker

Plastic bottled water is losing its appeal as city-wide efforts encourage people to twist on the tap.

In the past few years, tap water campaigns have circled the world, from Tokyo to Toronto, calling people to ditch plastic bottles and have faith in the purity of their local treatment plant.

In Bundanoon, Australia, a town of approximately 2,500 people, the sale of plastic bottled water was banned in September last year – theirs was the first local government to do so, ever. Venice, a city literally built on water, launched a glossy campaign in the summer to promote tap water and reduce the amount of rubbish along its canals. In October The Greater London Authority, along with Thames Water and Transport for London announced the installation of water fountains at the Hammersmith bus station and Tower Bridge museum.

While the drinking water movement has its origins in grassroots environmentalism, tap water campaigns in the United Kingdom are of a different nature: the leaders are private water companies who vie for a profit, just like bottled water companies.

“It’s kind of a weird contradiction, the fact that water is privatised in Britain,” says Richard Girard, head researcher with the Canadian think tank Polaris Institute. Girard wrote an article that warned: “Don’t be fooled by strange bedfellows.”

“Private water delivery companies see bottled water as a direct competitor for their product, tap water,” he wrote. “It is not surprising, then, that the pro-tap water movement in the UK has achieved such prominence - with the public relations teams from several private water companies working on the issue, and the use of the print media for promotion, it is bound to achieve some.”

There is an indication that preference for bottled water is decreasing in the UK. A report from market research group Zenith International released last March found that 2008 sales of bottled water fell by 5.5 per cent in volume and 4 per cent in retail value. The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), which regulates mains-fed water quality, commissioned a survey in November 2008 to compare attitudes towards tap water to results from a similar survey completed in 1995. It found that the number of people drinking bottled water has remained fairly static between the two phases, if not with slightly fewer consumers of bottled water in 2008 compared with 1995.

However, this decrease may be attributed to consumers simply switching to beverages other than water, rather than a preference for tap, according to Zenith. The group also projects bottled water consumption to rise in the UK to 2.5m litres - a 500,000 unit increase - by 2015.

While lobbyists from both camps accuse the other of lower quality, the reality is that one type is not held at a higher standard, but at a different standard.

Tap water quality is regulated by the DWI in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Bottled water is approved by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in three different categories: natural mineral water, spring water and bottled drinking water.

Natural mineral water, the most expensive form of bottled water, must be recognised by establishing the composition of water in relation to the rock strata through which it passed, and the aquifer in which it accumulated. Mineral and microbe composition must be strictly monitored to avoid variance. There is also no legal limit for sodium content in mineral water, which is not the case for the less expensive types. Despite its premium price tag, natural mineral water is also the most popular type of water, says Jo Jacobius, director of British Bottled Water Producers Ltd.

For spring water, regulations are a little less stringent. The underground source does not have to be officially recognised by the FSA, although it must be declared on the label. Criteria for chemicals and microbes are “essentially the same as tap water,” says an FSA spokesperson.

The ‘bottled drinking water’ category encompasses all other types of bottled water, which are usually the least expensive brands. This designation has no restrictions on the water source, and may be drawn from the same source as tap. The requirements for chemicals, pathogens and pesticides are also the same as for tap.

“Comparing bottled water and tap is an odd thing to do as the two aren’t straightforward alternatives - any more than a soft drink or hot beverage is a tap water alternative,” says Jacobius.