LEGISLATION AND REGULATION
Overview:
Bottled water producers in Britain and Europe are governed by strict laws at both a national and European level to protect consumers and provide a level playing field for competition.
The Food Standards Agency is the overall regulator for food and drink, including bottled water, in this country and there are different sets of rules for Natural Mineral Water, Spring Water and Bottled Drinking Water (sometimes called Table Water). These are each covered under different parts of The Natural Mineral Water, Spring Water and Bottled Drinking Water Regulations 2007 (ISBN 9780110787923).
In Britain, any company extracting water has to have an abstraction licence from the Environment Agency. This licence specifies a limit on how much water can be abstracted, and is set at a level to ensure that the amount of water extracted is sustainable.
The Environment Agency then checks that bottlers are sticking to their licensing agreement, with those in breach of their licence facing both fines and loss of licence.
Long-term Sustainability:
Even so, the viability of a Natural Mineral and Spring Water source depend on their long-term sustainability, so each producer has a vital interest in maintaining the source over the long-term rather than allowing it to run dry.
To gain recognition as a Natural Mineral and Spring water, all sources much also be protected from pollution or any other kind of interference.
The Food Safety Act 1990 ensures good hygiene in the manufacturing process, providing an over-arching framework for hygiene. The regulations specific to bottled waters provide more detail on this, and there is a dedicated bottled water industry guide to good hygiene, produced by the Food Standards Agency.
Water is covered by the Food Safety Act, and not its own Water Safety Act, as bottled water is considered in law to be a food. Therefore, the same standards apply to bottled water as to everything else we eat and drink.
European legislation:
Most standards are set at a European level as part of the European single market. As outlined in the case of Britain above, there are also some additional rules that each member state is permitted to impose in its own country if it wishes. However, these are not allowed to form a barrier to trade.
In addition, there is a European requirement that labelling is in a language ‘easily understood by the consumer’. Obviously, this language will be different from one country to the next.
As with UK law, European law applies to bottled water that is sold here, wherever in the world it is bottled and imports have to comply with the same rules as domestic production.