Across North America, the bottled water industry is exploding. Bottled water sales are now the fastest growing segment of the entire beverage industry. Over the past decade, the consumption of bottled water has more than doubled in the U.S. alone, in Canada; bottled water consumption now outpaces that of coffee, tea, apple juice or milk.
Inside the Bottle provides a vivid and disturbing portrayal of how four big companies Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Danone --- dominate the bottled water industry today. It examines key issues of public concern about their operations, including how they:
* pay little or next to nothing for the water they take from rural springs or public water systems;
* turn ‘water’ into ‘water’ through elaborate treatment processes;
* produce a product that is not necessarily safer than, nor as regulated as, tap water;
* package it in plastic bottles made of toxic chemicals that are environmentally destructive;
* market it to an unsuspecting public as ‘pure, healthy, safe drinking water.’
* sell it at prices that are hundreds and even thousands of times more costly than ordinary tap water.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/pubs/pubs_inside_the_bottle.html
Posted by Dave at August 26, 2005 08:38 PM