Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water [Hardcover]

Peter H. Gleick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2010

Peter Gleick knows water. A world-renowned scientist and freshwater expert, Gleick is a MacArthur Foundation "genius," and according to the BBC, an environmental visionary. And he drinks from the tap. Why don't the rest of us? Bottled and Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last one hundred years-and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than thirty billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles? With a scientist's eye and a natural storyteller's wit, Gleick investigates whether industry claims about the relative safety, convenience, and taste of bottled versus tap hold water. And he exposes the true reasons we've turned to the bottle, from fearmongering by business interests and our own vanity to the breakdown of public systems and global inequities. "Designer" H2O may be laughable, but the debate over commodifying water is deadly serious. It comes down to society's choices about human rights, the role of government and free markets, the importance of being "green," and fundamental values. Gleick gets to the heart of the bottled water craze, exploring what it means for us to bottle and sell our most basic necessity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tap water is safe almost everywhere in the U.S. So why does someone buy a bottle of water every second of every day? And where do the thousands of plastic bottles discarded daily end up? Gleick, recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, argues passionately for a new era in water management. [P]ublic access to drinking water would be easy, and selling bottled water... difficult, he writes, and government regulatory agencies should protect water from contamination and the public from misleading marketing and blatant hucksterism. Bottled water companies should be forced to include the true environmental costs of the production and disposal of plastic bottles in the price of bottled water, leaving it as an expensive option that most people will avoid With the gusto of a born raconteur and the passion of a believer, Gleick makes a sound case for improving the developing world's access to and the developed world's attitude toward safe, piped drinking water purified by the natural hydrologic cycle. (June)
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From Booklist

At what point, Gleick wonders, did water go from being something readily and freely available at any faucet in the land to a designer commodity marketed through multi-million-dollar ad budgets? Once found within steps of nearly every public building, park, and playground, how did water fountains suddenly become as rare as working pay phones? And with plastic bottles containing vitamin enhanced, oxygen enriched, or carbonated spring water carted around like so many new appendages, why are shoppers so enthusiastically embracing a practice that is both ecologically wasteful and economically reckless? Along with a discerning consumer's demand for accountability, freshwater expert Gleick trains his scientifically objective eye on the bottled water phenomenon to debunk dubious health claims, refute questionable purity standards, and expose environmental hazards associated with the unprecedented mania to purchase what used to be a free, pure, and plentiful natural resource. As landfills overflow with plastic bottles and aquifers drain, Gleick offers a sobering yet sensible look at society's ill-considered thirst for bottled water. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (April 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597265284
• ISBN-13: 978-1597265287
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #752,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California. His research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources.

Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert and was named a MacArthur Fellow in October 2003 for his work. In 2001, Gleick was dubbed a "visionary on the environment" by the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 1999, Gleick was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway and in 2006, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. In 2008, Wired Magazine named him "one of 15 people the next President should listen to."

Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and nine books, including the biennial water report, "The World's Water," "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water," and "A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy" (released August 2012).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for anyone who drinks water April 24, 2010

By W.E. Polis

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a rare book: its both a pleasure to read and very revealing. From scores of interesting stories and well-researched evidence, an expose emerges -- what seems to be pure and easy (grabbing that bottle) has far-reaching impacts -- not to mention health risks!

How did bottled water become so popular? What are the impacts on the environment? What's in the bottle? And, most importantly, what are the alternatives? The author answers these questions in a fast-paced and engaging style. The chapter on the "modern medicine show" is hilarious --"positive energy water" and "oxygen water" are some examples he discusses.

All in all, the author makes a passionate and well-supported case for improving our tap water, rather than hitting the bottle for every sip. And in doing so, he uncovers some of the amazing waste and deception tied up with our current approach. The solutions he presents and the vision he outlines for a "soft path" left me with some hope for the future -- and a thirst for something from the tap.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bottled Water Menace July 25, 2010

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

When I go running in these hot summer afternoons, I have to make sure to drink plenty of water beforehand. It used to be that I could get a drink of water at a halfway point on at least one of my usual routes, but the public water fountain there stopped flowing a few years ago, and though the structure remains, no one seems motivated to restore the flow of water that is the reason it is there. It's probably just low on the priorities, I used to think, and when they get around to it, I, and the rest of the public who drink water, will have a fountain again. That there may be something more to the delay in repair of my drinking fountain, something tinged with malevolent greed, would be hard to prove, but that is also a possibility, shown to me in the book _Bottled & Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water_ (Island Press) by Peter Gleick. The author is scientist who has published books and papers about the world's water, where we get it, and how we use it. Like me, he drinks tap water (it's nice to have experts agree with you), and uses water fountains when they are available. You should, too, and for a bunch of reasons he details that are sometimes obvious and sometimes surprising.

Water fountains, and not just mine, are disappearing. Part of the reason bottled water is so ubiquitous while public drinking fountains are disappearing is that that's just what the bottled water manufacturers want. Gleick demonstrates that they have played upon our fear of germs and contaminants. "Tap water is poison!" says one ad from a bottled water company. The bottled water industry has other advertising tactics to bring us around, of course. Particular waters are depicted as likely to make us skinnier or sexier. "A good advertiser can sell us something we don't want or need," advises Gleick. "A truly great advertiser can convince us to pay a thousand times more than we're already paying for something we already have. Like water." He has a chapter on absurd medical claims that are made for brands of mere water, including water that has been especially blessed by both Protestant and Catholic religious authorities. Claims that those waters have special powers are stupid, but are the less frivolous claims any closer to true? There's not a good way to tell. We do have good, frequent testing of our tap water; if contamination occurs, we hear about it quickly on the news (to the delight of water bottlers, I am sure). Gleick shows how impotent are the regulations on bottled water. Contamination, if it is ever discovered, may not be reported until weeks after the product has gone to market shelves, and there is no requirement that the water be automatically recalled or the public informed. Some bottling of waters has gone seriously wrong. Sure, you might find mold or bacteria in the bottled water you bought; if you are very unlucky, however, you will find parts of crickets. Yes; crickets were in the water bottled in a plant in Texas in May 1994, and the water was distributed to grocers. Of course, there was a recall. The recall came seven months later. There are plenty of other reasons to trust tap water over bottled. Bottlers just lie to us. It is good advertising to make us think that water is "Arctic" or "Glacier". Arctic Falls Bottled Water is bottled not in the Arctic, nor from falls, but comes from New Jersey, as does Glacier Mountain Natural Spring Water. You can get real Alaska water if you buy Alaska Premium Glacier Water; it comes out of the Juneau Municipal Water supply, pipe 111241 to be exact. Many bottled waters are just bottled tap water. Those bottlers that do withdraw water from "natural" sources have time and again sucked enough groundwater from below so that flows of surface water have been reduced, and the environment changed. Bottlers poison the environment; not only does all that plastic add to landfills, it takes plenty of energy to make it, and then lots more energy to transport the loaded plastic bottles to wherever they might be sold. Tap water has no such issues, of course.

Things may be changing. At Google headquarters, for instance, employees themselves arranged for environmental reasons to end the free distribution of plastic bottles of water to all employees. National sales of bottled water, which shot up starting in the late seventies, seem to have peaked and may be on their way down permanently. Cities like New York and Paris have programs to brag about their harmless, healthful municipal water. Gleick's hugely informative and amusing book ought to help this movement along. While you are waiting for the public water fountain to be restored, take bottled water with you. Buy a durable stainless steel container. Splurge and spend a lot of money on one of fine design, if you like, or decorate it yourself, and put the word "Arctic" on it. Fill it at your tap, and voila. You won't be doing yourself any harm, you will avoid the harm that bottled water does to the environment, and you will be far less impoverished.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and thought-provoking June 17, 2010

By L. Lieb

Format:Hardcover

Jeremy Glick's book brings up a whole new world: bottled war.It's fascinating to read about the rise of bottled water and how it became such an influential industry. Bottled water isn't cheap, and it's environmental costs are far worse. Tap water in modernized countries is seldom worse than the bottle variety. In fact, tap water is tested more and has to meet certain standards. Conversely, there are few--if any--standards that bottled water must meet. This difference is so significant that what appears to be virgin spring water, has been found to be filtered tap water.

"Bottled and Sold" also makes controversies over bottled water plants easier to understand. My main criticism is that Gleick, at times, rails against corporations to the point of being tiresome. He also compares bottled water to 19th century snake oil salesman. While I generally agree with the portrait Gleick paints of bottled water, the snake-oil salesman analogy is a bit over the top. Despite these criticisms Gleick overall does a good job of highlighting the problems with bottled water. He also raises an excellent point about bottled water being a form of privatization and the implications of such a policy.