Manufacturers of bottled water have played down a study which found bottled water was no safer or healthier than tap water.
The study, commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), found the bottled-water market was fuelled by concerns over the safety of municipal water and by the marketing of many brands as healthier than tap water.
Some bottled waters, which sell for up to 1,000 times the price of tap water, differed from tap water only in that they were distributed in bottles rather than through pipes, the study found.
The Swiss-based WWF said there were more standards regulating tap water in Europe and the US than in the bottled-water industry.
While bottled water had the advantage of being generally safer in areas where tap water might be contaminated, the study said, boiling or filtering local water rendered it safe.