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Nestle is being sued over the origins of Poland Spring Water:
Nestle's marketing and sales of Poland Spring water has been "a colossal fraud perpetrated against American consumers," 11 people claim in a federal class action. Filing their suit Tuesday in Connecticut, where Nestle is based, the lead plaintiffs are from the Nutmeg State as well as New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. They say they would not have paid a premium for the water had they known it did not actually come from eight purported natural springs in Maine.
Rather than being "100% Natural Spring Water," the "products all contain ordinary groundwater that defendant collects from wells it drilled in saturated plains or valleys where the water table is within a few feet of the earth's surface," lead plaintiff Mark J. Patane says in the complaint. "The vast bulk of that groundwater is collected from Maine's most populous counties in southwestern Maine, only a short distance from the New Hampshire border," the complaint continues.
As required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, all bottled spring water must be collected either at the source of a naturally occurring spring or from a well that draws from a natural spring. "In hydro-geological parlance, all such well water must be 'hydraulically connected' to a genuine spring," the complaint states. But the class says that's not the case for defendant Nestle Waters North America's eight sites in Maine.
People will pay for water in a bottle?!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:09PM (25 children)
No, they shouldn't lie about the source of their water.
However, if you pay more money because it comes from a spring rather than the water table, I have to wonder what difference you think it actually makes when drinking it. Certainly nothing you could measure.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:24PM (12 children)
If the tap water is poison like it is in a big city like London. Then it might save your comfort and health. Some people value that ;-)
Won't be pretty if there's a logistical failure though.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:34PM (11 children)
I live in London.
I drink water. I'm not dead yet.
P.S. Dasani used to be a Coke-owned brand that literally bottled treated London tap water (honestly, you can't make this shit up), and it sold well for ages. Until someone got them into the news for it. Then, suddenly, everyone stopped drinking the thing they'd been drinking for ages and hadn't even cared about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @10:00PM (7 children)
I think our tap water is from the TJ river near San Diego, smells and tastes bad.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:04AM (6 children)
That is not true, though as a resident I prefer cheap bottled water which doesn't leave a taste as well as a nasty mouthfeel you get from the tap water here. Annual reports about water contaminants are sent to all residents and we actually score pretty well, although the report does not reveal which kinds of pharmaceutical waste are in the water.
Also, the house i live in was built in the forties and my landlord is a huge mega-Jew who will put off having to fix things as long as possible, if at all. The taste of my tap water reflects that.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:32AM (4 children)
Who even drinks straight tap water? Use a water filter. It'll remove some lead and a bunch of other bullshit. And it definitely tastes different.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:34AM
Those filters can breed germs. I drink straight from the tap. My city publishes water quality data.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:59AM
Who drinks tap water? The People who ran out of bottled water and are too drunk and thirsty to drive or hoof it down to the store to get more.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @11:52AM (1 child)
People who live in real first-world countries.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 21 2017, @06:41PM
Or just places with reasonably modern plumbing outside of major cities. Even here in the US, most places I've lived have had tap water pure enough that you can superheat it. Makes brewing tea in the microwave so much more fun -- put it on for five or ten minutes, then toss the sugar in...carefully and from a distance, because half that water is going to boil off the instant that sugar hits and you don't want to be too close ;)
(I only mention that as a good "test" because I've heard numerous people claim that you can only do that with distilled water. Distilled water or rural US tap water apparently.)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 20 2017, @06:58AM
Cheap bottled water is almost always reverse osmosis water. Says so on the label in most cases.
So naturally all the crap in your city supply is filtered out. It's as good as any other bottled water.
Nobody bottels spring water. The sheer volume of botted water is a dead give away.
As for taste and mouth feel, those should be your Clue that the published reports of water contaminants are likely bogus. Pretty sure they don't test for anything that isn't specifically required to be absent. Hense the taste, smell, and mouth feel (which is mostly salts).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday August 20 2017, @12:50AM (2 children)
"I smoke a pack a day. I'm not dead yet." : P
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday August 20 2017, @11:35AM (1 child)
Okay, 8 million people also drink the same water, every day, and deaths from drinking such water are practically zero (if you exclude drowning).
Compare to "absence of treated tap water" - you'd have deaths left, right and centre in such a high center of population.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Sunday August 20 2017, @06:55PM
It's not always about people dying. A little lead in the water wouldn't kill people. But it sure would cause problems.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:26PM (10 children)
Social water. You and your hen pals drink the same brand of water to signal membership in your social clique. And let us admit only women drink bottled water.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:52PM (9 children)
Who might drink bottled water? People that don't have a source of water. People in an area that is under temporary water quality advisory. People that need portable and potable water. You're not thinking straight. Maybe you're dehydrated and need a bottle of water.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:04PM
You've never heard of beer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:14PM (3 children)
People who aren't very smart about how they spend their money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:22PM (2 children)
Indeed I never buy bottled unless there are valuable nutrients dissolved in the water. The water itself is not worth buying.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @11:12PM (1 child)
I can't always carry enough water for longer bicycling trips, and a lot of the time when I do I won't have an opportunity to brush my teeth until I get back. Drinking bottled water instead of pop, or high-sugar drinks like gatorade is sometimes the better solution. If I need electrolytes, I will often get them in the form of salts in food form, rather than liquid. Given that even the 'thirst quenching' drinks nowadays are full of sugar or excessive acids, most of them are not something you want on long distance trips.
Having said that, I buy them in 2 liter or gallon containers, 40oz if they don't have anything bigger. If you are dealing in 8-20oz bottles at 1.49 a pop, they are pointless. (High oz quantities are usually no more than 2x the cost of the 12oz-20 oz bottles, and any time you are thirsty enough to need a drink you probably need way more than 12oz to make sure you stay hydrated before your next stop.)
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:19AM
A gallon of water at WalMart is 69 cents. A bottle of water costs from the same price to 5x more for less.
(Score: 3, Funny) by rev_irreverence on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)
I only drink pure rain water or distilled water to avoid flouridation. Grain alcohol is good too.
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 19 2017, @10:00PM
It preserves Our Purity of Essence
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by nobodyknowsimageek on Sunday August 20 2017, @07:30AM
Do NOT drink distilled water. It can cause injury, and if you drink nothing but distilled water, can actually kill you. This is because pure water will leach out salts from your body and can cause cellular damage.
Reference: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/2250/death-because-of-distilled-water-consumption [stackexchange.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday August 19 2017, @11:51PM
On the few occasions we've had an advisory about tap water, we bought 1 gallon containers of distilled water for $0.80, not "brand name" water for $2.00/liter
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:53PM
In South Florida in the 1960s, it made all the difference in the world. The shallow water table water was infused with fertilizer (read: shit) pesticides (read: poison) and generally smelled and tasted like nothing. Meanwhile, the "drinkable" water came from deep wells and smelled heavily of hydrogen sulfide (read: rotten eggs), but... it was much less harmful to drink than the sweet smelling shit-poison water.
The complaint that the Nestle water came from shallow wells in a populous area seems to have merit to me. If you wanted municipal quality water, you can get that from the tap. (Insert witty Flint, MI reference here.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]