This book investigates the rapid growth of bottled water markets over the last twenty years. Its driving question is: how did water become a market thing, no longer a common resource but a commercial product, in industry parlance a ‘fast moving consumer good’? Plastic Water goes beyond the usual political and environmental critiques of bottled water to investigate its multiplicity, examining the bottle of water’s simultaneous existence as, among other things, a product, personal health resource, accumulating waste matter and focus of public concern and issue politics. The book is divided into ... More

This book investigates the rapid growth of bottled water markets over the last twenty years. Its driving question is: how did water become a market thing, no longer a common resource but a commercial product, in industry parlance a ‘fast moving consumer good’? Plastic Water goes beyond the usual political and environmental critiques of bottled water to investigate its multiplicity, examining the bottle of water’s simultaneous existence as, among other things, a product, personal health resource, accumulating waste matter and focus of public concern and issue politics. The book is divided into three sections. In section one, ‘The Event of Bottled Water’, three key factors in the historical and practical development of markets are examined: the development of the PET bottle, a mundane packaging material that transformed the beverages industry; the intensification of branding; and the rise of ‘hydration science’ and popular information about the need to constantly sip. Section two ‘Bottle Practices’ looks at what bottles do in the world, tracing drinking and disposal practices in three Asian cities, Bangkok, Chennai and Hanoi, with unreliable access to safe water. Section three, ‘Ethical Drinking’, investigates campaigns to contest bottled water markets and corporate responses. The rise of bottled water as an issue triggered an enormous variety of public activism aimed at ‘saying no’ to the bottle and defending public supplies and the humble tap. This sophisticated market contestation led to various responses from beverage corporations including attempts to redeem bottled water and link it to various causes.