Analysis Of Bottled Water Industry

Bottled Water Companies

Cynthia Barnett and Peter H. Gleick both address the business behind the bottled water industry. In “Business in a Bottle”, Barnett explains how the bottled water industry started, how the industry is struggling with the law regarding drawing its water from natural resources, and how it uses its marketing to imply the false location on where they got the water (128-138). Barnett then concludes that the bottled water industry helps economy with the job opportunities they provided and that consumers do not really care about the content of their bottled water because all they care about are the “convenience, the packaging, and the price” (141). On the other hand, in “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show”, Gleick

Both Barnett’s claim that bottled water is not better than tap water (139-141) and Gleick’s claim that specialized water is not better than tap water (118-120) demonstrate that companies’ claims are unreasonable. Furthermore, consumers assume bottled water is better than tap water because they have the impression that tap water is dangerous because of the tap water incident in “2003 [where] 400,000 people [got] sick” from drinking tap water. One may wonder whether companies use this incident to remind consumers how dangerous tap water is with the way Gleick presents bottled water companies even after the tap water is taken care of. Because Gleick portrays the deception of advertisement from bottled water businesses, he makes it clear that Barnett hints that they are taking advantage of the case by informing consumers that their water is safer than tap water in an indirect, subtle way. However, Barnett ensures readers that tap water are safe to drink again after the incident by proving that both bottled water and tap water are equally safe to drink with a study she provides: The testing from Florida Trend (magazine brand) concludes that Publix brand bottled water and tap water both contains “0.020milligrams per liter [of] THMs (trihalomethanes)”, a “common byproduct…linked to increased risk of cancer” (139-140). Although other bottled water brands may not have

According to Barnett, pictures on the bottle “often suggests a source more exotic than the water’s origins”, giving a sense that the water might be spring-water (138). Although labels create misunderstandings about its origin, it does not merit as a lie because bottled water companies call their water “drinking water”, “purified water”, or “natural water” (Barnett 138), which is not specific as to where the water comes from. The fact that Nestle gets their water 5000 feet from Madison Blue serves as a proof that that water is not really spring-water (Barnett 137). This means that the real source of water in bottles does not correlate with the implied source of water from labels. In this situation, Barnett shows that labels misguide consumers. But since labels do not directly specify the water source, one can only comment on the stealth of bottled water businesses. Also, because they handle their advertisement in such a manner, they often confuse consumers about their water source. In addition, the misleading marketing scam presented in Gleick’s article narrows down Barnett’s argument by further detailing the description of the content. Gleick’s focus on the description of the content suggests that instead of only questioning what the content is regarding the source; the description of the content should be inspected as well. He uses “