The Story Of Bottled Water

I’ve always been a tap water drinker, only in desperate measures will I buy a bottle of water. This video exposes the truths about the bottled water industry for exploiting one of our basic human needs, the way in which they scare us from drinking tap water, claiming that it is inferior to their bottled water. The seduce us with their marketing techniques, tricking us into thinking that tap water is for those that can’t afford tap water. I’ve noticed over the years how bottled water has now become just as much an accessory as with a designer handbag, with celebrities in magazines being spotted carrying bottles like Evian, Fiji, Perrier and Bling H²0, further creating a desire for people to buy bottled water in order to emulate the stars. The bottled water industry also mislead us into thinking that tap water is dirty and doesn’t taste as good but according to the video, tests have consistently shown that this is not the case. In Australia, fluoride is put in our tap water to prevent tooth decay, even though the bottled water companies will try and say that there are more minerals in their water. Do these so-called extra minerals warrant the 2000% mark up on their water?

It was shocking to find out exactly how much pollution manufacturing and shipping bottled water created. Not only that but waterways are being polluted because of industries like bottled water companies further increasing our need to buy their product. The recyclable bottles are not exactly recycled the way we would like to think (I like to think that they are reused and recycled over and over again), but they are not. The bottles are shipped (using up more fossil fuels in transportation) to India to be “downcycled” and/or dumped there.

As designers it is important to know what our impact is to the environment and the community when it comes to marketing our products. I think if you were going to disrupt the balance of nature we should offset it by doing something positive, like planting trees and using recyclable or recycled materials, or in the case of the bottled water industry maybe they should set up projects to help supply water to those who do not have clean, safe drinking water.