The documentary Tapped exceedingly effectively presents bottled drinking water as the ‘poster child’ for the problem of externalities in economic discourse. Although the word has been around since the early 1800s, the identification and accurate measurement of effects of an economic activity that are external to the transaction itself or to the buyer and seller, has remained challenging. In Tapped , we see the problems generated by the consumptive extraction of water by a commercial bottler. The ripple effects of this enterprise include the impact on local residents’ water and recreation, the health of distant drinkers of water stored in plastic bottles, the health of people living near the bottle manufacturing plants and the very health of the oceans (Soechtig). The solution or solutions will be challenging as well. Bottling water empties an aquifer and does not replace or recharge it. In Fryeburg, this had the frightening effect of leaving the townspeople without water at times, including the nursing home (Soechtig). The externality in this instance – the expense of trucking in water or locating new wells – is borne neither by the bottler nor the distant customers (without legal intervention). It is not clear that this external expense could even be correctly estimated ahead of time. In some instances, removing the water (whether municipally, agriculturally, or commercially) can create underground problems such as emptying lakes (Soechtig), causing ground subsidence (as in Florida and California) or the drawing in of pollutants from nearby polluted aquifers. The expenses of remediating such damage are huge and society has very few examples of successful restoration to a pristine condition, thus making it very difficult to price the cost of this externality. The bottles themselves contain chemicals of dubious safety (Soechtig). The potential costs for ill effects on reproductive health, birth defects, or for cancer can mount up rapidly. Additionally, lifetime expenditures for a child with birth defects are very difficult to predict. This is another externality where pricing is challenging. The manufacture of the bottles pollutes and causes health problems, concomitantly lowering the value of homes in large areas around the factories (Soechtig). While the economic cost of devastated home values might be calculable, the cost of human life remains a troublesome topic. Additionally, it is a puzzle to estimate the cost to families of being uprooted by an air/waterborne threat to their health. Capping the cycle of waste is the improper bottle disposal. Instead of being recycled, they pollute all waters and endanger whole eco-systems, as noted in the movie (Soechtig). The potential cost of lost fisheries is calculable, but the interdependence of many poorly understood environments suggests some vital and expensive symbiosis could be overlooked. A more subtle externality, aptly identified in the documentary, is the creation of a culture of disposability (Soechtig), illustrated by this anecdote. At a summer party, a teen stood next to several pitchers of beverages and urgently asked the hostess for a drink. Pointing out the various pitchers evoked no