Answer: We are made of water: 75% of our brains, 95% of our blood and 100% of our sweat and tears. We can last only a couple of days, so water convenience becomes paramount. Bottled Water industry sensed the demand and made it big business.. Australians buy approximately 700 million litres of bottled water annually- twice the amount of that six years ago. There are different kinds, and it's good to know what exactly you are getting.

Spring water must come from underground. But it’s not necessarily untreated and it doesn’t necessarily come from the picturesque location implied by the graphics on the label. Unless the label specifies that the water has been ‘bottled at source’, it’s probably been transported to a bottling plant in a bulk tanker. Many spring waters are filtered and some may be chemically disinfected (usually with ozone). Some bottlers have many sources, so consumers can’t be sure they’re getting an unpolluted beverage.

Artesian water is similar, except that the water probably comes from deeper underground. (Artesian water is confined underground between layers of impervious rock and is under pressure, so it comes to the surface without pumping.)

Distilled water is made by boiling ordinary water, capturing the steam and allowing it to cool. The result is pure H2O — no minerals, no chemicals, no bacteria, viruses or parasites.
Some practitioners worry people who consume only distilled water don’t get enough minerals or electrolytes. 

Purified water could be tap water that’s been distilled (a process that removes almost everything that’s not H2O) or otherwise treated to remove bacteria, dissolved organic material and minerals. Some brands, though, are purified spring water. Some filters remove only bad tastes and smells; others, like reverse-osmosis, push water through a multistage process that takes out metals like lead and arsenic, nitrates, parasites like giardia and cryptosporidium, and some bacteria and viruses. Remember, most of these are removed by city treatment processes anyway.

By Elena Voropay