Constructing Purity: Bottled Water and the Commodification of Nature

Growing up in the '70s, I remember the dusty gallon jugs of water in the produce section of the supermarket. I remember wondering why people would buy water when they could turn on the tap for seemingly limitless fresh water. From the layer of dust on those jugs it was clear not many people did, except in emergencies, snowstorms, hurricanes, and the like. Twenty-five years later, stores have entire aisles of bottled water with shiny labels, six-packs, "fresh," "natural," "spring." Again I find myself wondering, why are people buying water from the store? And now, today, people are not paying 50 cents a gallon for a milk jug of distilled water, they are paying a dollar a pint, or $8.00 a gallon. In many cases people are paying several times the price of gasoline, three times the price of milk, and almost the same price as coffee, juice, and soft drinks. In many stores, there are now as many brands of water as there are beer (Bottled). We see these waters in almost every food store in this country and we see people carrying the bottles around schools, offices, sporting events, and on the street. When we ask for water at a restaurant, we are now confronted with the question, "What kind?" The varieties of brands and styles has turned water into a chemistry lesson: "micro-filtered," "reverse-osmosis," "ozonated," "oxygenated," "mineral enhanced," "hydration drinks." The proliferation of bottled waters raises a number of questions. What cultural changes have occurred to facilitate this explosion of bottled water? What are the political and economic conditions of water in the global marketplace of the '90s? How does branded, corporately marketed water affect the use and perception of public water supplies? How is the notion of purity constructed and what images are used to signify nature within the labels of bottled water? These are some of the questions I hope to address in this essay. By connecting corporate constructions of purity with marketing strategies, we will see the power of the sign in the commodification of nature. The Political Economy of Bottled Water The four elements have been commodities for a long time. Matches and later BIC disposable lighters gave us one of the great expansions of the commodification of fire, and potting soil-corporate earth-has been packaged for some time. Water and air, more urgently necessary for life, have remained relatively absent from the ever-expanding commercial marketplace until recently. How these elements become commodified and the impact of this commodification pose powerful questions for the larger society. What is the condition of our democratic society when corporations become the guardian of something as essential as water and access to that water becomes a matter of free-market capitalism? The political economy behind the growth of bottled waters reveals a major incentive to market something so simple, yet so essential as water: profit. In 1981, bottled water consumption represented 1.8% of the U.S. Liquid Consumption Trends and by 1997, that number rose to 6.9%. This translates to 3.9 billion dollars in bottled water sales in 1997 (Bottled). Of the almost 4 billion dollars, 1.1 billion is from individualized bottled water sales. The industry draws a distinction between the larger, five gallon jugs distributed to water coolers in offices and homes and the smaller 46 premium" packaged bottles. For our purposes, we will be looking at the latter. The top five leading brands, based on 1997 dollar sales, are as follows: 1. Poland Spring $297.9 million 7.6% market share 2. Arrowhead 265.7 million 6.8% market share 3. Evian 185.0 million 4.7% market share 4. Sparkletts 183.9 million 4.7% market share 5. Hinckley & Schmitt 123.1 million 3.1% market share (Bottled) Some of these names have become very familiar and their parent companies are also familiar, with Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Perrier, and eight smaller brands all owned by Nestle (Lenzner). …