Bottled Water
Susan Maushart; 12/7/08
I hate to gush, but after a decade of participation in the public swilling of that lifestyle beverage we used to call H20, Elizabeth Royte’s new book, Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale And Why We Bought It, makes the great bottled-water boondbggle crystal clear; there really is a sucker born every minute, and that’s not even counting the sippers, guzzlers and slurpers. “Bottlemania,” I explain to the kids, “is a reference to ‘tulipmania’ - y’know, that 17th-century thing that happened in the Netherlands when tulip bulbs became more valuable than gold?” The silence that greets this is so pure, it sifts Vermeer-like across the table. “You know,” I persist, “tulipmania.” “Didn’t Scarlett Johansson get that?” someone offers.
No Internet Text; The Australian
Americans drink more than a billion bottles of commercially packaged H2O a week. Per capita consumption here ain’t exactly a drop in the bucket either - about 25 litres each a year, according to spin cyclists at the Australasian Bottled Water Institute (Institute? Excuse me, but isn’t that like calling the National Rifle Association a think-tank?).
In retail outlets alone, Australians last year spent $431 million on boutique hydration (the same amount, almost to the dollar, by which the Australian Medical Association says the 2008 indigenous health budget has been underfunded). The bulk of this tsunami cascades into the maws of Coca-Cola (Australia’s most bloated water bottler, under the Mount Franklin label) and Schweppes (Cool Ridge).
Sure, bottled water is expensive, pretentious and surprisingly tasteless (then again, who am Ito talk?). But wait, there’s less. Because, as they say over at the Kath & Kim Institute, it’s not just the affluence; it’s the effluence. In the US, the manufacture of plastic water containers alone guzzles 17 million barrels of oil annually, and some experts maintain that, when total energy for production, transport and disposal is calculated, we might as well fill a quarter of every bottle we buy with oil and cut out the middleman.
With masterly patience, I explain all this to the kids, reminding them of other historical examples of the irrational over-valuing of an intrinsically ordinary commodity. But enough of my relationship history. “And, in your lifetimes,” I finish, “this is what has happened to drinking water.” The 14-year-old pauses just long enough to break suction on Facebook: “I told you to buy more Red Bull.”
Tags: Australia, Environment, health, Trade