杏吧原创

ALLOW me to grovel, confess, repent: I drink a lot of bottled water. At a time when anti-corporate activists and environmentalists are targeting the booming bottled water industry on sustainability grounds, and even comparing people like myself to Hummer drivers, that has me more than a little concerned for my eco-cred.

So I expected to put me in my place. After all, it opens by declaring bottled water 鈥渆ither the biggest scam in marketing history or a harbinger of far worse things to come鈥�. By the end, though, Royte鈥檚 reportorial honesty gets the better of her apparent politics, and she shows us that the issue of what to drink, when drink we must, is as murky as the Mississippi.

鈥淏ottled and tap water both have serious issues鈥�

Bottled and tap water both have serious issues: for bottled water, concerns about the ecological footprint of production and corporate exploitation of water supplies; for tap, lingering worries about harmful contaminants. Royte explains these in painstaking detail, and admits that given the basic distastefulness of tap 鈥� sure, in the US it鈥檚 generally safe, but hardly fail-safe, and who knows about the quality of those pipes 鈥� she understands why so many people can be found clutching their stylishly bottled Vosses and Fijis.

At the centre of Royte鈥檚 tale is , a small town in western Maine where the townspeople have rebelled against corporate behemoth Nestl茅 over the channelling of their community鈥檚 water into armadas of tanker trucks and, ultimately, countless Poland Spring bottles. Here again, things are murky. In her account, the leading activist in Fryeburg comes across curmudgeonly, even crankish, while some nearby towns have welcomed Nestl茅 for bringing in new jobs.

For Royte, the Fryeburg situation is a glimpse of what the water wars of the future will look like: communities riven, big corporations cleverly lobbying and buying up land, and everyone hiring personal hydrologists (or, as Royte puts it, 鈥渉ydrostitutes鈥�).

Without dismissing bottled water outright, Royte argues that at a time of climate change and increasing risks to global water supplies, we must change the way we think about this crucial resource and begin treating it as a public good to be preserved, rather than the equivalent of an oil deposit or timber forest, ripe for corporate exploitation.

If there鈥檚 a flaw to the book, it鈥檚 Royte鈥檚 persistent back-and-forthism. Sometimes she portrays Nestl茅 as the devil incarnate; other times she can see the appeal of bottled water and seems sceptical of the . Meanwhile, as Royte runs through Brita filters, Nalgene bottles and testing labs in an attempt to figure out how to keep her own family鈥檚 tap water safe, I can鈥檛 help thinking that the average person, sans book deal, will never have the time or resources to become so meticulously informed.

In the end, it鈥檚 simple. Until we, as societies, invest a great deal more in cleaning up and protecting our public water supplies, the beautiful bottle 鈥� and the corporations behind it 鈥� will continue to triumph.