“Bottled and Sold” by Peter Gleick

The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water

Internationally recognized water expert Peter Gleick just published at book last month called Bottled and Sold which is an in depth look the bottled water problem. Gleick conducted a substantial amount of research for this book including interviews and plant visits and he uses these insights to examine how water is found, pumped, treated, bottled and sold to the public that simply expects a container of cool, clean water.

But bottled water is far from simple.

Gleick does not stop his examination with pointing out the problems associated with this widespread phenomenon; he offers contemporary solutions by making a sound case for improving the public’s attitude towards safe, piped-in drinking water, purified by the natural cycle and consumed with reusable containers (like Hydroflasks ! )

In Bottled and Sold, Gleick traces the history of the bottled water industry – how water went from being a public, natural resource to one of the most commercially successful products of the century.

If you don’t have time to read the book, let these statistics speak for themselves:

-Every second of the day in the U.S., a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second, a thousand more people throw these bottles away.

-There have been over 100 bottled water recalls in the U.S. – very few receiving any kind of public attention.

-It takes 17 million barrels of oil to produce the amount of plastic bottles consumed in the U.S. each year.

You can order Peter Gleick’s book here and most public libraries should have a few copies.