Should You Pay the Price for Bottled Water?
Danny V.
This experiment determines if people prefer the taste of bottled water over the taste of tap water and whether bottled water has less bacteria than tap water from a community water system. From the selection at the supermarket, Deer Park, Poland Spring, and Evain are the types of bottled water used in the bacterial tests. Five drops of each kind of water were dropped into the petri dishes with agar. The petri dishes were placed into the incubator for 96 hours. Bacterial growth was observed and counted. The results were recorded in a log book.
A blind survey was performed was performed to test peoples' water preferences. Poland Spring bottled water and North Wales Water Authority tap water were used during the taste test. Sixty five subjects were asked to choose which of the two waters they preferred.
The results of the experiment showed that the majority of the people (57%) did not prefer the bottled water. This was surprising. The expectation was that the majority would prefer it. In reality, many of the subjects could not tell a difference and the minority preferred spring water.
Deer Park Natural Spring Water had the least amount of bacteria (6 colonies) and NWWA tap water had the most bacteria (170 colonies), though the harmfulness of the bacteria was not tested. The hypothesis that bottled water would have less bacteria than tap water was shown to be correct.