Majority of Americans Worry Water Supply is Contaminated

Overland Park, KS, Jan. 5, 2018 – A new survey from Bluewater, innovator of world-class water purifiers for homes and businesses,  shows the majority of Americans (56%) worry their drinking water contains harmful contaminants like lead, bacteria, carcinogens, and plastic. Further, sixty percent actively take measures to help control what’s in their drinking water, such as using filtering systems and bottled water.^*

“The science shows our water supply contains nasty carcinogens like lead and plastic, Americans are aware of this and taking action to control their daily intake, but it’s largely the wrong solution,” said Bengt Rittri, environmental entrepreneur and founder of Bluewater.^** “Our culture has created a vicious cycle, where, rather than addressing water treatment and infrastructure, we’ve normalized the use of single-use plastic bottled water for much of our water intake, while creating a massive waste stream that further pollutes the compromised water supply.”

Corroborating the vicious cycle, the survey showed that people who drink bottled water for a semblance of control of their water supply are more worried about contaminants like lead, carcinogens, bacteria, pharmaceutical residue, and microplastics compared to the general population. Those that have had a water issue in the last two years are also more likely to drink more bottled water than the general population.

The Bluewater survey found nearly 70 percent of Americans are relying on bottled water in some capacity, with one-third (33%) drinking more than five bottles per week. This not only ignores our water supply issue, but further compounds it with unfathomable quantities of plastic waste. Only nine percent of single-use plastic is recycled globally, and a study from Orb Media found that 93 percent of U.S. tap water contains plastic strands, or micro-plastics.^***

Additional findings from the Bluewater survey show:

- One-third (33%) of Americans worry about lead and toxic metals in their drinking water

- 29 percent worry about bacteria

- 16 percent worry about plastic particles; that’s 52 million Americans

- One in four (26%) Americans say they personally have or know someone who has had a water issue in the last two years

Rittri has traveled around the globe evaluating different water challenges and solutions. In October 2017, he created the Bluewater Clean Water movement and is working to bring water advocacy to the forefront in the U.S. 

For more information, visit: http://www.bluewatergroup.com/

For media:

Water test kits for evaluating local drinking water available upon request. Please contact: bluewater-test@finnpartners.com.

*Survey methodology: One-time survey fielded to the general population in the United States on 11/16/2017 through 11/18/2017 via Google Consumer Surveys publisher network on behalf of Bluewater, receiving at least 1,701 responses.

**Environmental Working Group, https://www.ewg.org/videos/ewgs-tap-water-database-what-s-your-drinking-water#.WjFd5FWnGM8

***Geyer, R., Jambeck, J. and Lavender Law, K. (2017). Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made. Retrieved from http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782; Morrison, D. and Tyree, C. (2017). Invisibles; The Plastics Inside Us. Retrieved from https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics