Bottled water as a concept has been visible for a very long time, of course, and most histories of the phenomenon mark the introduction of Perrier in 1976 as the genesis of modern bottled water. It wasn't until the mid-'90s, however, that bottled water became everyday and, you know, for the common folks. Those of us that remember this period are lucky enough to have witnessed one of the most insane events in consumer history, when the soda industry figured out how to sell the same thing in bottles that people already had piped into their houses. [...]
There is also Nestle, which sits at the cheaper end of the "all natural" bottled water market, and which is helping to illustrate the general insanity of bottled water quite well right now in Colorado. In this case, marketing equals an unceasing stream of semi-trucks driving between a series of wells and a bottling plant in Denver, about three hours away. One truck pulls up, fills, and drives on, to be immediately replaced by another empty truck, and so on. In the process, they are draining an aquifer that feeds the Arkansas River. [...]
Meanwhile, aquifers are drying up, fast; in the U.S., groundwater levels are falling faster than at any other time in the past century. Pollution is hurting the supplies we have. In other places, fights over water can look a lot more brutal than shouting at a town hall. Winning the impeding water wars, which will be between countries but, even more so, against profits, will involve staring down the basic, absurd assumption that water is a thing that we must pay a lot for, and for a lot more than just money.
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