Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, by Elizabeth Royte

Really good book. Despite it's title, it's really not one of those trendy 'little histories' (Like Salt: A World History, or Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World).

This was more a look at the conflicts between public interest, corporations, and health and safety officials in an era of diminishing availability of clean water, which the UN says is a basic human right.

Some major nuggets:

"Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute estimates that the total energy required for every bottle's production, transport, and disposal is equivalent, on average, to filling that bottle a quater of the way with oil."

"Unless cities invest more to repair and replace their water and sewer systems, the EPA warns that nearly half of them will, by 2020, be in poor, very poor, or "life elapsed" status. The bill to take care of the drinking water part, to hell with the sewers, will run $390 billion, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers..."

Nestle's virtual takeover of Fryeburg, Maine is a frightening look at what might be lying ahead for American water, and some parts of the book made me gasp in fury.

Aside from the carbon dioxide pollution resulting from shipping Fiji Water 5000 miles just to get to San Francisco, "the bottling plant, in need of a steady power source, runs three diesel generators twenty-four hours a day...

Away from the rain forest, Fiji's urban areas are chronically water-stressed - not because there isn't enough water around, but because the infrastructure to deliver and protect it is inadequate...In 2007, half the nation didn't have access to clean water."

And, in a this-is-the-final-straw, Fuck Starbucks and the Gap (the whole RED thing makes me mad)

"(Starbucks) sells Ethos water, for $1.80 per half liter, with the copy line "Every bottle makes a difference." How much of a difference? A nickel for every bottle, up to $10 million over five years, goes to nonprofits that focus on water delivery, sanitation, and hygeine. To reach the goal of $10 milion, Starbucks will have to sell forty million bottles of water a year - water trucked from springs in Baxter, California and Hazelton, Pennsylvania - leaving behind $350 million in revenue when all is said and done."

This was an excellent book. I think I enjoyed The Blue Death:Disease, Disaster and the Water We Drink more, because the municipal water systems' crumbling infrastructure is so much more vivid and visible, but this was great. Highly recommended!