Bottle vs. tap

Group challenges students to swallow their assumptions

By: Emily Craighead
   Clean, clear and cool describes what most people expect of the water they drink.
   Some drink it straight from the tap, others swear by filtered water, and many only drink water from a bottle — but that doesn’t mean they can tell the difference among the three.
   Blindfolded, Princeton University sophomore Eva Leung correctly identified one sample of tap water, but confused Dasani, Aquafina and a second tap water sample.
   Ms. Leung, who said she usually drinks Brita-filtered water, was one of many passersby in the Frist Campus Center at Princeton University on Wednesday who stopped for a taste test as part of the "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign by Corporate Accountability International.
   Through the campaign, Corporate Accountability seeks to challenge the marketing slogans for bottled water sold by Coke, Nestle and Pepsi, which account for half of the $55 billion bottled water market, according to the organization.
   "Overwhelmingly, people can’t tell the difference" between tap water and bottled water, said Dan Favre of Corporate Accountability.
   Beyond overturning the perception that bottled water is better than tap water, Mr. Favre said Corporate Accountability hopes to protect the human right to water, and prevent water from becoming a profit-driven commodity.
   "Many people do not realize that the most popular bottled waters come from the tap and are resold to the public at hundreds or thousands of times the cost," Mr. Favre said. "Corporations like Coke, Pepsi and Nestle promote bottled water as pure, safe, healthy and superior to tap water — but bottled water is actually less regulated than tap water."
   Similar tap water challenges have been taking place across the country over the past two weeks to commemorate the United Nations’ World Water Day March 22.
   The United Nations also designated 2005 to 2015 as the "Water for Life" decade, during which the organization wants to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water. The United Nations also wants to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources, by developing water management strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which promote both equitable access and adequate supplies.
   "It’s a topic I think is of real importance," said Princeton University senior Laura Westwood, noting that the lack of access to clean water leads to disease and death in many parts of the world.
   Yet Ms. Westwood’s criticism of corporate control of the world’s water supplies is tempered by nutritional concerns in countries where vending machines with sugary, carbonated drinks are everywhere.
   "While the industry isn’t ideal, the fact that water is available as an alternative to pop is important, too," she said.
   According to Corporate Accountability, half of all Americans drink bottled water, and one in six Americans drinks only bottled water.