It is estimated that almost half of the non-alcoholic drinks consumed in the European Union are bottled waters of some type, mineral or sparkling.
If you visit Italy regularly, you will have noticed the country’s apparent reluctance to drink tap water. As we all try to reduce our waste, the statistic that Each Italian consumes an average of 208 liters of bottled water per year It’s pretty raw.
This data, prepared by the market research company CSA Research, also reveals that only 29.2% of Italians drink tap water every dayand that almost half (43.3%) drink exclusively bottled water.
Italy is the largest consumer of bottled water in Europe and the second in the world, after Mexico, where tap water is not so safe. He tap water in most Italia Not only It is perfectly drinkablebut it is also the fifth best in all of Europe in terms of overall quality, after Austria, Sweden, Ireland and Hungary.
But why are Italians so reluctant to drink tap water and why is bottled water so popular? According to the CSA study, almost 29% of those who only drink bottled water say they do so because they don’t like the taste of tap water.
Another four in ten people say they don’t trust tap water, while around three in ten respondents They consider bottled water to be safer. something that the latest studies disagreeat least in terms of micro and nanoplastics
Which European countries consume the most bottled water?
The global bottled water market is growing rapidly and it is estimated that 550 million households will consume bottled water by 2024. This represents more than 446 billion liters of water per year or around 1 million bottles per minute.
It is estimated that In Europe there are about 75 million bottled water consumersof which 80% prefer sparkling water in the north of the continent.
Italia It leads many European countries in bottled water consumption, but others are not far behind.
According to a market study carried out by GlobalData in 2022:
- Italia: 208 liters per capita per year
- Germanywith 167 liters per capita per year
- Portugalwith 140 liters per capita per year
- Hungarywith 138.8 liters per capita per year
- Spainwith 135.4 liters per capita per year
In Europe as a whole, according to the research, 48% of non-alcoholic drinks consumed in the EU in 2022 were packaged waters.
Is bottled water a plastic problem?
If we assume that each household in the world consumes two bottles of water per day, this amounts to a global total of 210 billion bottles per year. This figure coincides relatively well with previous estimates, according to which each year 480 billion plastic bottles, half of which are water bottles.
In the EU, Each person generated an average of 36.1 kilograms of plastic packaging waste in 2021. This represents a total of 16.13 million tons produced in the block each year, of which only 6.56 million were recycled.
As part of the Green Dealthe aim is to guarantee that 55% of plastic packaging waste is recycled by 2030. And among the specific regulations against marine litter there is a target of 25% recycled plastic in PET bottles by 2025 and 30 % on all beverage bottles by 2030.
Italy is also trying to improve people’s confidence in tap water. Between 2020 and 2022, the National Center for Water Safety conducted more than 2.5 million chemical and microbial analyzes in 18 different regions covering 90% of the population.
At the national level, 99.1% of samples met water standards and 98.4% met other factors that do not affect health but can change tastethe smell or color of the water.
The publication of these results is the first step in the creation of a “water registry” which will make data on the quality of tap water available to the Italian public.
