You can read the whole article by following the link below, but here are some of the salient facts drawn from an article that appeared in MSN Money.
The Sheer Scale of Bottle Water Consumption
In 2006 we glugged
- 2,275 million litres of bottled water (the British Soft Drinks Association) were drunk in 2006
- The equivalent of just over one Olympic-sized swimming pool a week in bottled water is drunk in London
 The Sheer Cost of Bottled Water
Bottled water is typically 500 times more expensive than tap water. But that hasn't put off the general public. Bottled Water is the fastest growing drinks sector and is worth £1.5bn a year.
What are the Bottled Water Options
There are three types of bottled water:
- Natural Mineral Water - This is bottled at a named source untreated
- Spring Water - Also bottled at a named source, but might have had some chemical treatment
- Bottled Drinking Water - Unidentified source but could be a tap (Remember the Coca-Cola fiasco when it launched Desani which proved to be little more than tap water?)
The Environmental Cost of Bottled Water
Jeanette Longfield of the organisation Sustain says: "The bottles contribute to the half a million tonnes of plastic we throw away every year, and 'water miles' are adding to the damage caused by food miles. It also takes an estimated two litres of water to produce a litre of bottled water - all because drinking tap water has become unfashionable."
Source: "The real cost of our bottled water binge", By Naomi Caine, August 15 2007. Read the full artice... | 
