Tap vs. Bottled Water: Which Has More Chemical Byproducts?

Food & Wine • February 20, 2026 • health

Key Points:

A new study published in Water Research compared levels of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in bottled water to chloraminated tap water, revealing that all bottled water samples contained some DBPs but at relatively low levels.
Researchers tested 10 popular bottled water brands, including purified, spring, and groundwater types, for 64 DBPs, including 50 previously unmeasured unregulated compounds.
Bottled water DBP levels ranged from 0.01 to 22.4 micrograms per liter, significantly lower than the tap water sample tested, which contained 47.3 micrograms per liter, with U.S. tap water averaging around 52 micrograms per liter.
The study highlights that while some DB