Does Acqua Panna Have Microplastics? What We Know, and What S.Pellegrino’s Test Showed

Has Acqua Panna been tested for microplastics?

Not in any published study we could find. The most-cited brand-level test, Mason and colleagues’ 2018 study for Orb Media, covered 259 bottles from 11 brands: Aqua, Aquafina, Bisleri, Dasani, Epura, Evian, Gerolsteiner, Minalba, Nestlé Pure Life, San Pellegrino and Wahaha. Acqua Panna is not mentioned. The 2024 Columbia study that counted about 240,000 particles per litre, most of them nanoplastics, used three brands it did not name. A 2024 Swiss consumer test of ten mineral waters did not include Panna, and nor did Consumer Reports’ 2020 bottled water tests.

Acqua Panna’s own sites don’t mention microplastics. So the answer is “not measured”, which is not the same as “clean”. Every bottled water that has been measured with a sensitive method contained particles. Our bottled water brand database lists which brands have a named test and which don’t.

What did the 2018 study find in S.Pellegrino?

S.Pellegrino, Acqua Panna’s sparkling sister brand from the same Nestlé-owned company, is one of the few premium Italian waters with a peer-reviewed count. The study tested one lot: ten bottles, best before November 2018, bought through Amazon.com. Every lot except one German glass lot was in plastic bottles, and all bottles had plastic caps.

For context, the study’s average across all brands was 325 particles per litre, and the highest brand mean was Nestlé Pure Life at about 930. S.Pellegrino came out lowest, but that ranking rests on one lot of one format bought years ago. It says nothing about S.Pellegrino in glass or in the 330 mL sleek can it now sells in the US, about smaller particles, or about Acqua Panna. S.Pellegrino does not publish the coating used inside its cans, and we found no test of the canned version. Our bottled water brands ranked page explains why lot means, maxima and brand means should never be swapped.

How reliable was the Nile Red method?

The study added Nile Red, a dye that sticks to plastic and glows under blue light, then filtered each bottle. Particles over about 100 µm were picked out and some were checked by infrared spectroscopy; those checked were confirmed as polymers, most often polypropylene, the plastic used in many bottle caps. The far more numerous particles from 6.5 to 100 µm were counted by software from photographs and could not be confirmed individually.

That gap drew the main criticism. Nestlé’s head of quality argued the method lacked a step to remove biological material, so “some of the fluorescing particles could be false positives”. Nestlé said its own testing of six bottles from three locations “showed between zero and five plastic particles per liter”. That result was not published in a peer-reviewed form. On the other side, Andrew Mayes of the University of East Anglia, who helped develop the Nile Red technique, told the BBC the work was “very high quality analytical chemistry” and that the small particles could be described as “probably plastic”.

Both can be true. The method likely overcounted some small non-plastic particles. It also could not see anything under 6.5 µm, where newer methods find most particles. Our explainer on why water tests miss small microplastics covers that second limit.

What did the 2024 Swiss test find?

In June 2024 the Swiss consumer program Kassensturz had two Swiss labs test ten mineral waters. It reported that “Spuren von Mikroplastik” (traces of microplastics) were found in San Pellegrino and one other water. The published article gives no amount, size range or bottle type. Nestlé replied that S.Pellegrino “kann bedenkenlos getrunken werden” (can be drunk without concern), that the results were “nicht schlüssig” (not conclusive) for it, and that there is no official method yet for testing products for microplastics.

That last point is fair as far as it goes: methods differ, and there is no regulatory limit for microplastics in bottled water. It is also why a brand saying “not conclusive” is not evidence that particles are absent.

Use the App

Glass or PET: which Panna do you buy?

Scan the bottle. The app reads the format and closure, shows whether that brand has ever been tested and how, and suggests a lower-plastic way to serve still water at home.

Is Acqua Panna in glass better than plastic?

Acqua Panna says it uses “glass and PET plastic bottles”. It describes its PET bottles as about half recycled PET on average, and lists its US 1-litre PET bottle as 100% recycled plastic, excluding label and cap. It says about 90% of the glass it places on the Italian market comes back to the plant to be washed and reused. Its glass bottles close with a screw cap; the brand calls its glass bottles BPA-free but doesn’t say what the cap or its liner is made of.

The French result is the one to remember. The glass itself sheds nothing, but in drinks sold in France the plastic particles in glass bottles matched the paint on their metal caps, scratched as caps rubbed together before use. Blowing and rinsing caps at the factory cut contamination sharply. We set out the three glass-versus-PET studies in our Voss review, and the closure mechanism in do plastic bottle caps shed microplastics?

Glass still has advantages: no PET wall, and a returnable bottle in Italy. It just isn’t a guarantee of plastic-free water. Recycled PET is still PET, and the evidence on whether it sheds more or less is mixed; see is recycled plastic safer?

Does it matter where Acqua Panna comes from?

Not much, for this question. Acqua Panna says its water flows for an average of 14 years beneath the Tuscan hills and is bottled at the spring in Scarperia e San Piero, in the Mugello valley. S.Pellegrino comes from San Pellegrino Terme in the Italian Alps and has carbon dioxide added at the factory, according to the brand. A protected source can limit what is in the water before bottling. The 2018 study concluded that contamination comes at least partly from packaging and the bottling process, which a protected source cannot control.

On a different contaminant, S.Pellegrino measured 0.31 parts per trillion of total PFAS in Consumer Reports’ 2020 tests, among the lowest of the carbonated waters. Acqua Panna was not tested. Unlike several Nestlé brands in France, we found no evidence that Acqua Panna or S.Pellegrino were involved in the 2024–2025 French mineral water treatment affair.

What would a useful Acqua Panna test look like?

Nestlé could settle the question for its own brand more easily than any outside lab. A test worth trusting would:

• Compare glass and PET from the same production period, since the closure and bottle wall are the variables shoppers can choose.
• Sample several lots, because single bottles in the 2018 study ranged from none detected to 74 per litre within the one S.Pellegrino lot, and far wider in other brands.
• Count down to 1 µm or below and confirm each particle’s polymer, rather than relying on a dye for the small fraction.
• Report blanks and size ranges, so lab contamination is subtracted and results can be compared with other studies.
• Include opened and reopened bottles, since cap friction adds particles in studies of other brands.

Until a test like that is published, treat any precise “Acqua Panna microplastics per litre” figure you find online as borrowed from another brand or study. The useful decisions, which format, how you store it and whether you reopen it, don’t depend on that missing number.

What the evidence does not establish

• An Acqua Panna particle count. None exists in the sources we reviewed. Don’t borrow S.Pellegrino’s number: different water, plant, format and year.
• That S.Pellegrino is the cleanest brand today. Its 2018 ranking rests on one lot of plastic bottles bought in the US.
• That glass Panna is plastic-free. The closure is the open question, and Panna doesn’t publish its cap materials.
• The number of nanoplastics. No study of either brand counted particles under 6.5 µm.
• A health effect. The FDA says current evidence does not show that the levels of micro- and nanoplastics detected in foods pose a risk to human health.

What’s the lowest-plastic way to drink still water?

1. If you buy Panna for taste, buy the format that suits how you drink it, keep it cool and out of sunlight, and pour into a glass rather than reopening the same bottle all day.
2. Don’t refill single-use PET. Repeated opening and washing wear the neck and cap.
3. At home, filter tap water with a filter certified to NSF/ANSI 401 for microplastics and serve it from a glass carafe. See water filters compared.
4. Ask the brand what its glass-bottle caps and liners are made of. That single disclosure would answer the biggest open question for glass Panna.

If you’re comparing with another premium brand, our review of Evian’s two tested lots shows how much results can vary within one brand.