Facts about bottled water

• The global bottled water market valuation grew by 7 percent in 2006 to reach a value of $60,938.1 million.
• In 2011, the market is forecast to have a value of $86,421.2 million, an increase of 41 percent since 2006.
• The price of bottled water is up to 10,000 times the cost of tap water.
• PET bottled water containers make up one-third of 1% of the waste stream in America.
• It takes three times the amount of water to produce the bottle as it does to fill it.
• An estimated 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per annum in the United States and around 200 billion bottles worldwide.
• Only one in five water bottles are recycled.
• 40 percent of all bottled water is taken from tap water.
• In the United States, the FDA regulates bottled water whilst the EPA regulates the quality of tap water.
• The rate of total dissolved solids is sometimes 4 times higher in bottled mineral waters than in bottled tap ones.
• In the United States, bottled water costs between $0.25 and $2 per bottle while tap water costs less than US$0.01.
• The United States is the largest consumer market for bottled water in the world, followed by Mexico, China, and Brazil.
• Americans drink 21 gallons of bottled water per capita per year.