The lie behind your bottled water

Yesterday it was treated sewerage, today Starts at 60 is revealing the truth behind your bottled water.

It turns out that while you think you’re forking over good money for a bottle of purity, some in the industry are rubbing their hands in greed that you’ve just consumed another piece of plastic.

Warren Peffer, owner of the brand Nature’s Best admitted to the Brisbane Times that the company treats tap water and then places a ‘pure safe’ label on the front of its 600ml bottles before selling it to you for an incredible 1,720 per cent mark up. What that means is that while a bottle of Nature’s Best is sold to you for $2 in shops across Australia, it probably only costs the company 11 cents to produce.

“The water is basically free, so I just see it as selling plastic bottles,” Peffer says.

Not bad, when you consider the company sells approximately 25 million units each year.

Fairfax Media conducted a survey of bottle stuff sold in cafes, supermarkets and convenience stores across Sydney and found seven out of 34 brands sold ‘purified’ tap water.

The average price you pay for a bottle of tap water is about $2.75 per litre. A six-pack of Pureau 600ml bottles comes in cheapest at $1.41 per litre while Mount Everest 600ml costs you $4.17 per litre.

Spring and mineral waters were also included in the survey where the average price was around $5.18 per litre.

It’s said Australians are drinking more bottled water, with 466 million litres being guzzled in 2015 — an almost 40 per cent increase since 2010.

Do you drink bottled water? How much does it cost? Do you know where it is sourced from?