Most people turn to bottled water as a first alternative to drinking unfiltered tap water.
However, these people are quickly discovering that bottled water is not the healthy drinking water they want, it is extremely inconvenient, and it is very expensive. The new FDA specifications, which are nearly identical to the Environmental Protection Agency's requirements for municipal water, are designed to ensure that bottled water is as safe as that from the tap . In fact it has been found that countless consumers who have paid dearly for store-bought water were in fact buying tap water in a bottle. At this time, bottled water companies are not required to test for cryptosporidium, even though bottled water sources often are just as likely to have crypto contamination as any other drinking water source. In 1985, California citizens appealed to the state with complaints about the occurrence of illness secondary to the consumption of bottled water.