Bottled & Sold

The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water

By: Peter H. Gleick

Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin

Peter Gleick knows water. A world-renowned scientist and freshwater expert, Gleick is a MacArthur Foundation "genius", and according to the BBC, an environmental visionary. And he drinks from the tap. Why don't the rest of us? Bottled & Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last 100 years - and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than 30 billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles?

With a scientist's eye and a natural storyteller's wit, Gleick investigates whether industry claims about the relative safety, convenience, and taste of bottled versus tap hold water. And he exposes the true reasons we've turned to the bottle, from fear mongering by business interests and our own vanity to the breakdown of public systems and global inequities. "Designer" H2O may be laughable, but the debate over commodifying water is deadly serious. It comes down to society's choices about human rights, the role of government and free markets, the importance of being "green", and fundamental values. Gleick gets to the heart of the bottled water craze, exploring what it means for us to bottle and sell our most basic necessity.

©2010 Peter H. Gleick (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Life-giving Information

Water is crucial to life. This book gives the back story to the bottled water industry and places it in the context of how we get water and why it is so important that we do it in the most sustainable way possible.

Good information

I thought the content was good and presented well. The reader was a little boring though.

Excellent overview of the peculiar bottled-water industry

This book was profoundly interesting for me, and much of it is still current and relevant even though it’s now 14 years after it was published.

However, it was quite disconcerting to hear dozens of references to an era that would’ve been hip and trendy two decades ago. Perhaps the author would consider creating an update to this important information!

No.

Wouldn't buy it again. This is just another collectivist who believes people are entitled to something because they need it.

Interesting topic but boooooring read (listen)

Any additional comments?

Nothing new, the author has done some work on energy costs of bottled water, and yes like most packaged and long hauled bewerages it is not very environmentally friendly. The book is extremely US centric show casing some of the absurdities of the US system compared to e.g. the European perspective with respect to at least the regulatory part. The fact that advertising is deceptive and that there are quaks out there peddling miracle water should not come as a surprise (maybe the US regulatory impotence should), but it is worth three chapters in a book. Water is an interesting topic and the book could have been much more interesting than it turned out. Common sence: stay off the bottled water unless you need it for convenience or if in areas where safe tap water does not exist. Try one of the other books on the topic, I gave up about an hour short of the end.