Bottled water is a large U.S. beverage category with rising recent volume, substantial single-serve use, and a supply chain that spans public systems, wells, springs and other sources. The statistics below separate market estimates from facility inventories, life-cycle models and study-specific environmental or microbiological findings.
Key Bottled Water Statistics
The most broadly useful figures are:
- In 2024, U.S. bottled-water volume increased 2.9%.
- In 2024, U.S. bottled-water producers’ revenues increased almost 4%.
- In 2024, single-serve bottled-water volume reached 11.6 billion gallons in the United States.
- In 2024, single-serve water represented nearly 71% of U.S. bottled-water volume.
- In 2024, U.S. per-capita bottled-water consumption reached 47.3 gallons per person.
- In 2024, bottled-water consumption exceeded carbonated-soft-drink consumption by 12.5 gallons per person in the United States.
- In 2020, the United States consumed an estimated 15 billion gallons of bottled water.
- The USGS inventory identified 10,192 U.S. facilities producing bottled water.
- USGS acquired water-use data for 159 U.S. bottled-water facilities through 2022.
- Among bottled-water facilities with available source data, 39% used wells.
- Among bottled-water facilities with available source data, 26% used springs.
- Reported annual use for U.S. bottled-water facilities ranged from less than 1 gallon per day to 1.8 million gallons per day through 2022.
- PET resin production used an estimated 70–83 megajoules per kilogram of resin in the cited life-cycle review.
- In 2018, an estimated 29.1% of PET bottles produced in the United States were recycled.
- In a global assessment, about 80% of PET bottles produced and used since 1950 were mismanaged, littered or dumped.
- A 2026 life-cycle scenario modeled 730 single-use 500-milliliter PET bottles for one year.
- In the same scenario, one year of single-use PET use had a modeled 67.54 ± 0.14 kilograms of carbon-dioxide equivalent impact.
- A peer-reviewed review reported 92–100% of bottled-water samples tested positive for microplastics across the studies it summarized.
Contents
- U.S. bottled water market size, volume and sales trends
- Bottled water consumption and beverage comparisons
- Facilities, water sources and withdrawals
- PET production, energy and carbon statistics
- Bottled water waste, recycling and environmental costs
- Bottled water safety, reuse and exposure research
U.S. Bottled Water Market Size, Volume and Sales Trends
Recent U.S. market data show continued volume growth, with revenue growth stronger than volume growth in each of the latest three reported years. These figures are Beverage Marketing Corporation industry market estimates, so they should be read as category estimates rather than government census totals.
| Year | U.S. bottled-water volume | U.S. producer revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | +1.1% | nearly +12% |
| 2023 | +0.4% | more than +6% |
| 2024 | +2.9% | almost +4% |
Source: Beverage Marketing Corporation, “New Report: Bottled Water Volume Growth Quickens in 2024”. “Almost,” “more than,” and “nearly” preserve the source’s wording.
The longer historical series also shows how unusual the latest period is in context: the U.S. series contained 17 double-digit annual volume-growth years from 1977 through 2024. Single-serve volume increased 2.4% in 2024, reaching 11.6 billion gallons, and represented nearly 71% of total U.S. bottled-water volume.
Bottled Water Consumption Statistics and Beverage Comparisons
Per-person measures make category scale easier to compare, but they remain industry estimates and depend on category definitions. In 2024, U.S. per-capita bottled-water consumption reached 47.3 gallons, up from 46.4 gallons in 2023.
| Beverage measure | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Bottled water, gallons per person | 46.4 | 47.3 |
| Carbonated soft drinks, gallons per person | 34.9 | 34.8 |
The 2024 bottled-water estimate exceeded carbonated-soft-drink consumption by 12.5 gallons per person. The comparison is between industry category estimates, not a measure of hydration, health benefit or household spending.
The USGS separately reported an estimated 15 billion gallons of bottled water consumed in the United States in 2020, equal to 45.2 gallons per person. Its visualization also expressed that estimate as 342 standard 16.9-ounce bottles per person, using a 16.9-ounce or 0.5-liter single-use bottle assumption.
Source: USGS, “Water bottling across the U.S.”. The 2020 figures are an industry estimate reproduced by USGS, and the bottle count is a stated conversion assumption.
Bottled Water Facilities, Sources and Withdrawals
The USGS inventory identified 10,192 facilities producing bottled water within a broader inventory of 43,365 beverage-bottling facilities. Those counts describe an inventory, and coverage and facility classification determine what is included.
USGS acquired water-use data for 159 bottled-water facilities through 2022. Only 0.6% of the broader beverage-bottling inventory had acquired water-use data, so the available records cannot be treated as a national census or a basis for simple national extrapolation.
Among facilities with available water-use data, 61%, or 151 facilities, were bottled-water facilities. Among bottled-water facilities with available source data, the reported source shares were:
- 39% used wells.
- 26% used springs.
- 20% used a combination of sources.
- 13% used public supply.
- 1.3% used surface-water intakes.
- 0.7% used other sources.
These source percentages are conditional on limited available data; the USGS notes that source attribution is limited and partly inferred.
Reported annual-use records through 2022 ranged from less than 1 gallon per day to 1.8 million gallons per day. Across 618 annual values from 159 facilities, the median reported annual use was 0.0435 million gallons per day, or 43,500 gallons per day.
| Facility category | Median reported annual use |
|---|---|
| Bottled water | 0.0435 million gallons per day |
| Soft drinks | 0.114 million gallons per day |
| Distilleries | 0.281 million gallons per day |
| Breweries | 2 million gallons per day |
The category medians use different facility and record counts, so they are descriptive comparisons rather than standardized productivity measures.
PET Bottled Water Production, Energy and Carbon Statistics
PET figures describe a standard 500-milliliter bottle life cycle in a review of cited estimates. Ranges vary with bottle mass, process, energy mix and system boundary, so they are not universal per-bottle values.
| Stage or measure | Estimate | Unit or scope |
|---|---|---|
| PET resin production energy | 70–83 | megajoules per kilogram resin |
| PET resin production emissions | 2.19–2.733 | kilograms CO2-equivalent per kilogram resin |
| PET resin production waste | 0.091–0.141 | kilograms waste per kilogram resin |
| Bottle fabrication energy | 8.388–20 | megajoules per kilogram bottle |
| Bottle fabrication emissions | 0.034–0.046 | kilograms CO2-equivalent per 500-milliliter bottle |
| Water-treatment energy for filling | 0.003–0.006 | megajoules per filled bottle |
One kilogram of PET resin produces about 0.877 kilograms of finished 500-milliliter bottles. Depending on bottle mass, one kilogram of resin produces about 33.7–65.94 finished bottles, using 13.3–26-gram bottle masses.
The cited treatment estimate assigns about 0.01 kilograms of CO2-equivalent per liter to water treatment. Chilling water for up to one week uses about 0.2–0.4 megajoules per liter, a refrigeration scenario that varies with appliance and duration.
Source: NIH, “Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of PET Plastic Water Bottles”.
Bottled Water Waste, Recycling and Environmental Costs
In 2018, an estimated 29.1% of PET bottles produced in the United States were recycled. More than 69% of U.S. plastic container and packaging waste entered landfills that year; this is a broader category than bottled water.
For a 500-milliliter PET bottle, the cited disposal scenarios estimate 0.097 megajoules recovered from incineration and 0.595 megajoules recovered from recycling. The corresponding emissions estimates are 0.0211 kilograms of CO2-equivalent for incineration, 0.0009 kilograms for landfilling, and 0.0114 kilograms prevented through recycling under the cited displacement assumptions.
Older U.S. figures require special care. For 2006, supplied estimates put PET water-bottle container production at 827,000–1.3 million tons, with about 76.5% discarded; GAO reported that these figures came from industry and an environmental nonprofit and were not independently verified.
GAO’s calculation placed discarded water bottles at about 26–41% of 2.4 million tons of total discarded PET plastic in the United States in 2006. These are historical estimates and should not be presented as current waste shares.
Globally, a PET-bottle assessment estimated that about 80% of PET bottles produced and used since 1950 were mismanaged, littered or dumped. It estimated that about 8% of PET-bottle material, or 19 million tonnes, was lost to oceans and seas, with modeled ecosystem damage of about US$8.6 billion and a hidden cost of about US$0.02 per PET bottle.
Sources: NIH, “Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of PET Plastic Water Bottles”; GAO, “Bottled Water: FDA Safety and Consumer Protections Are Often Less Stringent Than Comparable EPA Protections for Tap Water”; Environmental Challenges study record via DOAJ.
Bottled Water Safety, Reuse and Exposure Research
The available safety and reuse figures are study-specific. They describe modeled scenarios, laboratory or trial results, and review ranges; they do not establish universal health effects or a single safety ranking for all bottled water.
A 2026 life-cycle study modeled 730 single-use 500-milliliter PET bottles for one year at 1 liter of out-of-home water consumption per day. Its production-only global-warming result was 0.0925 ± 0.0002 kilograms of CO2-equivalent per PET bottle.
In the same production-only reusable-bottle comparison, modeled impact ranged from 0.2831 kilograms of CO2-equivalent for HDPE to 13.1035 kilograms for aluminum under the study’s assumptions. The one-year single-use PET scenario produced a modeled 67.54 ± 0.14 kilograms of CO2-equivalent.
The study’s five-day microbiological test found that dishwashing reduced microbial charge by about 90% for all dishwashed reusable-bottle materials. That is an experimental result over five days, not a population health estimate.
A peer-reviewed review reported that 92–100% of bottled-water samples tested positive for microplastics across the studies it summarized. Methods and detection limits differed, and the finding does not by itself demonstrate a health effect.
Sources: Environmental Research, “How sustainable and safe is drinking from refill-and-reuse bottles?”; Sustainability, “Bottled Water: An Evidence-Based Overview of Economic Viability, Environmental Impact, and Social Equity”.