Bottled water is the most popular solution to overcome the low quality of drinking water in large areas of the world. The global consumption of bottled water reached 391 bn litres in 2017 and is expected to continue growing over the coming years. 

These high rates of bottled water consumption have raised concerns on its environmental and economic costs. The disposal of the bottles generates important amounts of plastic waste (More than 480 bn plastic drinking bottles were sold globally in 2016 ) that in many cases end up contaminating our oceans and other ecosystems (Figure 1). A 2015 study found that 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste reached the oceans in 2010 alone  while a recent publication showed that 72% of animals sampled in the deepest points in the ocean contained plastic particles in their guts . Plastic waste is a major global concern and therefore, regional and national authorities worldwide are promoting measures to reduce plastic use and disposal. Bottled water production also results in the consumption of large amounts of oil: Only in the US, 17 million barrels of oil are consumed every year in order to source the national production of water bottles, not even taking into account the additional oil consumption associated to transportation and refrigeration. Water tanks and filtering systems (dispensers, jugs) constitute widespread alternatives to bottled water where water with sufficient quality is not available.

However, these systems face several limitations: The transportation of water in tanks results in the consumption of fuel and the emission of important quantities of Carbon Dioxide while the effectiveness of filtering systems to remove heavy metals and other hazardous components has been questioned by multiple studies.