Sales of bottled water fall 9 per cent after environmental backlash

Shop sales were down by 9 per cent in the year to March to £284million, according to the retail analysts TNS.

This follows a widespread backlash by environmentalists who condemn it as wasteful and even immoral.

UK sales of bottled water had been growing at more than 6 per cent annually for more than a decade, reaching 2billion bottles a year.

One reason for its success is that many claim not to like the taste of what comes out of the tap. In some parts of the country there is a chlorine taint.

However, blind taste tests by Decanter magazine put London tap water ahead of many brands transported at a premium price from as far away as Fiji.

Fashionable labels such as Evian, Perrier and Volvic have recently faced a combined onslaught from Government ministers, consumer groups and green campaigners.

A 500ml bottle of Evian typically costs 42p in a supermarket, or 84p a litre. That is 840 times the price of tap water, which comes in at 0.1p a litre.

Among the environmental costs of bottled water are the energy needed for production, transport and disposal of the bottles. Compared with tap water, it generates more than 5,000 times the amount of carbon emissions per litre.

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Transporting bottled water in Britain is estimated to produce 33,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to the annual energy use of 6,000 homes.

The Government's Food Standards Agency has banned bottled water from its offices along with an increasing number of Whitehall departments, including Downing Street.

At the same time, restaurateurs across the country have been shamed into offering diners tap water rather than premium bottles costing several pounds.

Encouraged by marketing campaigns stressing its apparent health benefits, many consumers have switched to bottled water in recent years as an alternative to fizzy drinks - particularly sparkling water, which accounts for a quarter of bottled sales.

They increasingly tend, however, to refill their bottles from the tap.

The food and health lobby group, Sustain, has been running a campaign to put pressure on Government departments and official bodies to switch to tap water. Campaigns director Richard Watts said: "This looks to be the first ever recorded fall in bottled water sales.

"It is a significant development. The message about bottled water being unnecessary, expensive and damaging to the environment is finally getting through.

"Around the world, the authorities in cities like San Francisco and, morerecently, London, are making determined moves against bottled water. The backlash has clearly started."

The Consumer Council for Water's chairman, Dame Yve Buckland, said: "The bottled water industry spends millions investing in their brands and that's what people are paying for when they pick up a bottle of water.

"There is no health advantage in drinking bottled water instead of water from the tap."

The British Soft Drinks Association, which speaks for producers, said: "Bottled waters strictly conform to the very highest standards in hygiene, provenance and sustainability.

"Despite common misconceptions to the contrary, bottled water usually travels much smaller distances than most other food and drink products.

"The vast majority of bottled water is sourced from UK producers, while most imported water comes from France."