If you have difficulty telling the difference between tap and bottled water, it may be because there isn't one.
According to Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group that aims to challenge dangerous and irresponsible business behavior, the water from your sink is just as good as -- if not better than -- the bottled version.
The group brought its campaign to Penn on Tuesday, holding a blind taste-test outside Hill College House to mark World Water Day, which was yesterday.
About 70 passers-by participated in the test, which pitted bottled water from the Coca-Cola Co.'s Dasani, PepsiCo's Aquafina and Nestle SA's Poland Springs with tap water from West Philadelphia and Center City.
Organizers say there is no difference between some brands and water from the kitchen sink.
"About a quarter of the bottled water sold in the U.S. actually is just tap water," organization spokesman Dan Favre said.
College senior Liz Lovelock, who took the taste test, said she was unable to distinguish between the samples.
"I don't think there's a huge difference between bottled water and tap water," said Lovelock, who mistook West Philadelphia tap water for Aquafina's.
The organization, which conducted similar demonstrations in seven other cities across the U.S., used the event to attack what they consider the myth of the bottled water industry.
"Big corporations are misleading consumers by telling us continuously that bottled water is better for us than tap water," Favre said. "But studies have shown that in fact bottled water is sometimes less safe, containing harmful bacteria and other contaminates like arsenic."
Several Penn students volunteered to organize and run the event, including College senior Ryan Tracy.
Tracy said misleading product promotion isn't all that's at stake.
"Corporations ... are trying to turn water into a profit-driven commodity as opposed to ... a natural human right," he said.
Representatives from the organization said that control over water is becoming more of an issue as global problems of water scarcity and access increase.
Americans spend $55 billion annually on bottled water, Favre said.
