Why Do We Drink So Much Bottled Water?

Water is essentially free, so why do Americans spend billions on bottles of it? Learn the history behind bottled water's popularity, from marketing to health scares, in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren vocal bomb here. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation,
bottled water was an eighteen point five billion dollar industry
in the United States in seen and by volume. The
bottled water industry grew by seven percent from six to seventeen,

(00:23):
going from twelve point eight billion gallons to thirteen point
seven billion gallons, helping bottled water surpass soda as Americans
favorite drink. But just one hundred years ago, bottled water
was hardly even a business. Water was just something we
got from our taps. So how did we get here?
How in the world did something we used to get
ford seemingly free turn into a billion dollar industry. Like

(00:46):
so many modern day products successes, marketing has played a
huge role, but so have some other factors. Let's explore.
Bottled water was a thriving industry early in United States history.
There are records of it being sold in the u
US as early as seventeen sixty seven, but business really
started flowing at the beginning of the nineteenth century as
dip mold glass technology made bottles more affordable and easier

(01:09):
to mass produce. Back then, two types of customers drove
bottled water sales, the rich and people who lived in cities.
The wealthy took trips to spas and resorts built around
natural springs, so mineral water bottled at the source was
away for them to continue enjoying those supposed therapeutic benefits.
Just for perspective, by eighteen fifty six, Saratoga Springs in

(01:31):
New York was producing seven million bottles of water a
year for the average city dweller. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, bottled water was the safest drinking option because
municipal water was often sickening. Literally, drinking bottled water helped
people avoid diseases like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. By ninety

(01:51):
most U S. Cities offered free, filtered chlorinated water, which
dramatically improved public health. According to the National Bureau of
Economic Research, of the decreases in depths in major cities
was due to clean water. But what was a breakthrough
for public health was also a blow to the bottled
water industry. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with
free and safe public water, the bottled water industry had

(02:13):
adapted to markets it could serve primarily selling five gallon
that's about nineteen liter bottles too large operations that needed
water for employees. Even with mass produced glass, the bottles
were heavy to ship, and that cost weighed down the
bottled water business. The nineteen seventies and eighties were the
real turning point for the new bottled water industry thanks

(02:33):
to three major influences. First, that's when pet plastic bottles
were patented. Unlike heavy glass, pet bottles could stand the
pressure of carbonated drinks because they were lighter than glass.
Pet bottles helped propel the bottled water industry forward. Second,
these two decades are also when French sparkling water company
perry A launched its aggressive marketing campaign to get Americans

(02:55):
to spend money on water. In the seventies, perry A
hired or sin Well to do voiceover for its TV ads,
touting Perier as more quenching, more refreshing, and naturally sparkling
from the center of the earth. Perrier also began sponsoring
athletic events like the New York City Marathon to associate
its water with fitness and health. By night, Perrier was

(03:17):
predicting sales of seventy five million bottles that year alone.
By the eighties, Perris ads used the tagline Earth's first
soft drink. But the final push to bottled water came
in nineteen eighties six, when the Environmental Protection Agency released
a report showing tap water used by thirty six million
Americans contained high levels of lead. Even though cities rushed

(03:39):
to fix these problems after congressional investigations, the distrust of
municipal water lingered, making the switch from public water to
bottled water a permanent one for many families. So the
health halo that has graced bottled water since ancient times
largely explains our spending habits, even when what we're buying
is simply filtered tap water, such as pepsicos off affina

(04:00):
and Coca Cola's Desani. These ad campaigns around health, purity
and youth work so well because they appeal to our
desire for immortality. Researchers at the University of Waterloo conducted
a study in that tested this terror management theory, the
idea that much of our thinking and behavior is driven
by our fear of death, even in things like buying

(04:20):
bottled water. The results found that a fear of dying
does play a role in why people buy bottled water
even though they know it may not be better for
them or good for the planet. Stephanie Cote, one of
the researchers on the study, set in a statement, bottled
water advertisements play on our greatest fears in two important ways.
Our mortality fears make us want to avoid risks, and

(04:42):
for many people, bottled water seems safer, somehow purer or controlled.
The other psychological, but real aspect that drives people to
spend money on bottled water is the continued lack of
trust in the government to provide clean, safe drinking water
and maintain water systems. Consider the people of Flint, Michigan,
who have relied on bottled water through the contamination crisis

(05:03):
that's lasted years there, as have the First Nations people
in Canada, where water too reserves has been under drinking
advisories since January. Attempts by the Trump administration to repeal
the Federal Clean Water Rule have deepened public distrust. We
spoke via email with Dr Peter H. Galek, President Emeritus
and Chief Scientists at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development,

(05:26):
Environment and Security. He said the use of bottled water
in emergency situations is a perfectly good idea, but the
challenge is rebuilding public trust after such emergencies so that
private bottled water use can then be eliminated. Bottled water
should never be a permanent solution to providing safe, affordable,
reliable drinking water for people, also considering the environmental costs

(05:48):
of bottled water a mass s which would help the planet.
There is promise in campaigns that give people reusable bottles,
laws that banned single use bottles, and the new incarnation
of drinking fountains as bottle refillings nations, but the messages
to change our habits need to match the power of
those that drive sales of bottled water. Gleek explained. The

(06:08):
other challenge, of course, is that private bottled water companies
have large budgets for advertising their product, while municipal water
agencies do not. This imbalance has produced a situation where
it is easy to lose trust in a municipal water
system and hard to regain it, even when the vast
majority of our water systems are safe and far far
cheaper than bottled water, and in places around the world

(06:30):
where safe tap water isn't available. The answer is to
make it available, not to give up and rely on
costly private bottled water. Today's episode was written by Sean
Chavis and produced by Tyler Clang. If you enjoy our
show and want to support us directly, check out our
online store at t public dot com, slash brain stuff,

(06:51):
and of course, for more on this and other environmental topics,
visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com