Source: UN Comtrade online database, 2006; Emmanuelle Bournay.
Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $15 Billion. A journey into the economics–and psychology–of an unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of indulgence. Message in a Bottle, by Charles Fishman
(via matthias daum)
I would contest the statistics of this chart/article. If you do some digging for alternate data, you find that it’s not America who thirsts for bottle water, it’s Europe and Asia.
If anything, America has superb drinking water in relation to the rest of the world, and our exported water is a commodity as well as a detriment.
And where do all those plastic bottles themselves come from? Well that’s another story.
Aug 7th, 2008 / 11:23 am