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Bottled Water Regulation

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The safety of drinking water is an ongoing concern within the global society. No doubt, the quality of drinking water is the most essential factor. So let’s take a closer look on what is important when we talk about drinking water quality.
In the previous section, tap and bottled water regulations were described. Drinking water quality in the United States remains the safest in the world. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets legal limits for over 90 contaminants in drinking water. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) allows states to set and enforce their own drinking water standards as long as the standards meet or exceed EPA’s minimum national standards (ASCE 2017 Infrastructure Report Card). Furthermore, tap water standards and quality …show more content…

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water as a packaged food under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The standards for quality of bottled water are set by FDA based on the EPA standards for tap drinking water. In fact, EPA has MCL regulations for 96 contaminants, and FDA has Standards of Quality (SOQ) regulations for 91 contaminants, for a net difference of 5. Both EPA and FDA set the same maximum allowable contaminant levels for 83 contaminants. However, FDA has standards for 4 contaminants/water properties that EPA does not, and EPA has standards for 11 contaminants that FDA does not (Hirst, p.15, …show more content…

Community water systems deliver water to consumers through one million miles of pipes across the United States. Many of those pipes were laid in the early to middle of 20th century with a lifespan of 75 to 100 years. Every day, nearly six billion gallons of treated drinking water are lost due to leaking pipes, with the estimated 240,000 water main breaks occurring each year. The leaky, aging pipes are wasting 14 to 18% of each day’s treated water; the amount of clean drinking water lost every day could support 15 million households (ASCE 2017 Infrastructure Report Card). But the leak of the water is not the most concern. Homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes, fixtures and solder. Treated water running through the lead pipes get contaminated, even though it has left water treatment plant in safely drinkable

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