Britons urged to ditch bottled water

Britons waste £2 billion on bottled water

Environment Minister Phil Woolas has called the UK's £2 billion bottled water industry 'immoral,' and has urged Britons to opt for tap water for the sake of the environment.

Speaking to the BBC's Panorama, Mr Woolas commented, 'It borders on being morally unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on bottled water when we have pure drinking water, and at the same time one of the crises that is facing the world is the supply of water.'

He added, 'There are many countries in the world who unfortunately haven't got pure tap water. We should be concentrating our efforts on putting that right.'

The sales of mineral water have continued to double every five years, with two billion litres sold annually in Britain alone. The average cost of bottled water is £1 a litre, which pays for 10,000 litres of tap water.

The minister also draws attention to the environmental impact of the mineral water industry, from the transportation, to the emissions caused by packaging. Shadow environment secretary, Peter Ainsworth added to the argument, calling the industry an 'ecological nightmare.'

Mr Woolas will now back a campaign with Thames Water and the Friends of the Earth to urge restaurants, pubs and cafes to make tap water more readily available to customers.