It's one of the biggest scams of modern times: bottled water.

Capital is spent on bottled source and mineral water. Dozens of different brands are available in a variety of supermarkets. The labels often contain images of mountains, waterfalls and mountain streams that have to lead us to believe that the water is being tapped directly from the Alps, but in fact the majority comes from the exact same source as our tap water. In fact, tap water usually comes from a well and is in fact spring water.

Take the Bar le Duc brand, for example, which draws its water from the same source as where a part of the city of Utrecht gets its water, Sourcy from the source of Bunnik and the Albert Heijn home brand from the Bron Hoensbroek. And yet we all like to pay hundreds of times more money for water from a bottle than from the tap. An average 1.5 litre bottle of water in the supermarket comes at about 1.50 euros, for the same money you buy 1000 litres of tap water!

Is there at all no difference between tap water and spring and mineral water? Yes, the biggest difference is in the purification. The quality requirements for tap water in the Netherlands are extremely stringent (which makes virtually the cleanest water in the world coming out of the tap in our country). To achieve this, tap water is first pumped by a water treatment plant. Spring and mineral water are bottled directly at the source.

It is often said that tap water would be harmful to health because chlorine is always added, but since 2005 it has almost no longer been used. Today it is mainly Ozone and UV light that purify the Dutch tap water. But in some cases, such as a pipe breakage, chlorine is (unfortunately) used to disinfect the water. However, the stringent requirements and controls on our water ensure that its quantities are very low .

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