This article will cover whether or not bottled water bought from restaurants, stores, water companies, and other businesses comes from sewer water. Of course, this question does eventually come up, especially with the many conspiracies that some people watch for their own personal entertainment, that is sometimes spread around as facts to others. It is easy for someone to state one thing from a truthful source and purposely leave out all the in between important information regarding bottled water.
A person can watch, see, or read something about bottled water and its origin, and it can easily get spread into, “Bottled water comes from sewer water!”. Is there some truth to this or not?
First off, there are sources that can explain to you how majority of bottled water is made in general. Bottled water does have to come from sources that have to be approved by the government first as acceptable for use. Bottled water cannot come directly from sewer water because of this reason.
However, this doesn’t mean that sewer water doesn’t eventually make its way into water sources that can be approved by the government for making bottled water. However, you have nothing to be alarmed about, and we will explain why that is.
The sources of water where bottled water comes from are spots that usually a bottled water company buys as land to produce their bottled water. These companies normally find their water from places where the earth naturally produces fresh water. Fresh water is considered to be any water that is naturally produced by the earth, that is suitable for drinking after it has been filtered and sterilized. What is determined as suitable is, once again, judged by the government on whether the water can be used or not.
Just because the water is considered to be fresh water, doesn’t mean that it is pure water. It can still contain dirt and other contaminates in the water that make it less safe to drink. This is why that same water is later filtered further before it is made into bottled water or used as tap water.
How Sewer Water Can End Up In Bottled Water
Sewage water as stated, does eventually end up in some bottled water, but not in the way that you probably are thinking. This will cover how sewage water is handled, and how it can eventually end up in bottled water.
Let’s start from the beginning with where the sewage water goes. All of the water that is used for what ever purpose in a home or business, usually ends up in the main sewer line. This main sewer line is underground, and connects to many homes’ and businesses’ (including restaurants’) plumbing. All of the plumbing is any water that is used for any purpose in the home, business, or restaurant.
This means that the sewer water for example, can contain chemicals from hair products after one uses them when they take a shower, or grease mixed with water from a restaurant. Whether that water is being used for the bathroom, the kitchen, or other purposes, it all eventually flows down to this main sewer line. Everything in that water inevitably flows down with it.
This water then flows in the main sewer line to a water treatment plant, which then recycles that water, after it goes through thorough processing. The processing cycle of that water can take around a day or less for it to complete its treatment at these water treatment plants. The processing of the sewer water includes mechanical treatment, biological treatment, sedimentation of sewer water, ozonation of sewer water, and filtration of the sewage water.
Mechanical Treatment
Things like toilet paper and human excrement are first removed in the mechanical treatment. Also grease, toys, phones, toothbrushes, dentures, rocks, jewelry and other physical objects are filtered out of the water during this process too. The oils and sand are removed after the other physical objects are removed, once the sewage water is sent to the next part of the mechanical treatment.
Once most of the solids have been removed from the water, then it is taken to the clarifier tanks. The clarifier tanks are large containers that are used to remove more solids from out of the sewage water. The sludge in the water, which are smaller materials mase from some of the previous solids, eventually settles at the bottom of the water with the help of the clarifier tanks. This sludge is eventually separated with other machinery at the plant. This sludge is then used to power most of the water treatment plant as fuel.
Biological Treatment
Once the sewage water has the solids removed, it is sent to biological treatment in the water treatment plant. This involves microorganisms that help clean the water, various chemical processes to release chemicals in the water, and the use of air pressure to also treat the water.
Sedimentation Treatment
The sedimentation treatment of the sewage water follows after the biological treatment, which involves more clarifiers removing the remaining sludge from the water, and removing others things used that were used in the water during the biological treatment. They settle to the bottom of the water, and are sucked out of the water through machinery.
Ozonation Treatment
The sewer water is then sent to ozonation treatment, which involves ozone gas being pumped into the water. The ozone gas separates chemicals for things like medicine, drugs, and pesticides from the water. These things are captured in the water, separated, then disposed of. The ozone gas is artificially produced with machinery by the use of oxygen.
Filtration Treatment
The filtration treatment of the water can involve filtering the water through sand to further clean the water of what has been separated by the ozonation. Bacteria in the sand for instance can further break down the molecules in the water that separated during the ozonation. The sand also allows further residue in the water to be separated if it somehow got through in the other treatment processes.
After the water is finished with the treatments and placed under constant testings throughout the entire process from beginning to end, it is sent back into streams, rivers, lakes, and other water reservoirs to be handled by mother nature (earth’s water cycle) and the municipal water cycle.
So, if you swim/fish in rivers and lakes, you could be swimming or fishing in processed sewer water that has been cleaned for usage again as tap water.
This finished product of water from the processing plant treating the water, is now ready for usage to be sent back into the municipal water cycle where it will get further filtration and cleaning. Also, earth collects this water and purifies it further through evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and snow/iceberg meltoff.
So, how does sewage water end up in bottled water?
Everything from the tap water to the other forms of surface water from springs and wells can contain water that was once considered to be sewage water. When the earth collects this water through evaporation, it inevitably ends up in some fraction of percentage in many sources of fresh water; therefore ending up into some bottled water as well. Even if a certain type of bottled water from a specified source is valued over another because of this reason, it can still have water that was once sewer water.
Bottled water companies that take their water straight from the tap water provided from the municipal water supply (tap water), are taking water that has been in the sewer after it has been treated by a water treatment plant and cleaned further in the municipal water cycle. This means that how this water is filtered and treated by the bottled water companies that do this, is what should be evaluated, not where they got there water from.
