Italy, Germany, Portugal: Which European countries consume the most bottled water?

If you’re a regular visitor to Italy, you might have noticed the nations’ apparent reluctance to drink tap water.

As we all try to cut down our waste, the statistic that each Italian consumes an average of 208 litres of bottled water every year is fairly stark.

That finding, from market research firm CSA Research, also revealed that only 29.2 per cent of people in Italy drink tap water every day - and that nearly half (43.3 per cent) drink exclusively bottled water.

It shows that Italy is the biggest consumer of bottled water in Europe and the second-biggest worldwide after Mexico, where tap water is not nearly as safe to drink.

Tap water in the majority of Italy is not only perfectly safe to drink, but it’s also the fifth best in all of Europe in terms of overall quality after Austria, Sweden, Ireland and Hungary.

But why are Italians so loath to drink water from the tap - and why is bottled water - or acqua in bottiglia - so popular?

CSA’s research found that nearly 29 per cent of those who only drink bottled water say they do so because they don’t like the taste of tap water. A further four in ten people say they don’t ‘trust’ tap water, while around three in ten of those surveyed consider bottled water to be safer.

Which European countries consume the most bottled water?

The global bottled water market is rapidly growing with an estimated 550 million households consuming bottled water in 2024. That amounts to more than 446 billion litres of water each year or around 1 million bottles per minute.

In Europe, there are thought to be roughly 75 million consumers of bottled water with 80 per cent of those in the north of the continent preferring sparkling water.

Italy is ahead of many European countries when it comes to the consumption of bottled water but others aren’t far behind.

Market research from GlobalData found in 2022 that, after Italy, Germany with 167 litres per capita comes in second place. Portugal is next with 140 litres per capita each year, then Hungary at 138.8 litres per capita followed by Spain with 135.4 litres.

Overall in Europe, the research found that 48 per cent of the non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the EU in 2022 were packaged water.

Is bottled water a plastic problem?

If we assume that each household around the world consumes two bottles of water per day, that is a global total of 210 billion bottles per year. This tallies relatively well with previous estimates that 480 billion plastic bottles are consumed annually with half of those being water.

In the EU each person generated an average of 36.1 kilograms of plastic packaging waste in 2021. That is a total of 16.13 million tonnes being produced in the bloc each year and just 6.56 million of that was recycled.

As part of the Green Deal, there are aims to ensure 55 per cent of plastic packaging waste is recycled by 2030. And specific rules targeting marine litter include a 25 per cent goal for recycled plastic in PET bottles by 2025 and 30 per cent in all beverage bottles by 2030.

Italy is also trying to improve people’s trust in tap water. The National Centre for Water Safety carried out more than 2.5 million chemical and microbial analyses across 18 different regions covering 90 per cent of the population between 2020 and 2022.

Nationally 99.1 per cent of samples were compliant with water standards and 98.4 per cent were compliant in other factors that don’t affect health but may change the taste, odour or colour of water.

The publication of these results is the first step in creating a ‘water registry’ that will make data about the quality of tap water available to the Italian public.