“Could you imagine the price of air if it were provided by another supplier? ” – God.
The multinationals and trans-nationals of the world are yet to provide “bottled breathing air” in a big way, so let us direct our gaze to water, where they have already converted an “ubiquity” (something that is omnipresent) into a “commodity” that can be commercially exploited.
Before we take the plunge into the cesspool called water, let me quickly take you through a few facts:
The per capita consumption of bottled drinking water in the US has reached a historical high of 31 gallons according to a report by the Beverage Marketing Corporation which expects the category to surpass another “noteworthy threshold” by exceeding 10 million gallons by 2013. Now, that’s a lot of packaged water. Especially if you consider that:
- More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world.
- Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
- Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation or safe drinking water facilities.
- 780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.
- “[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.”
- An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.
- Over 2.5X more people lack water than live in the United States.
- More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.
Let us now take a holistic view of the water conundrum. What is bottled drinking water, how is it made and more importantly, what does it mean to us:
- First you draw the water from the ground using electricity, which is overwhelmingly fossil fuel generated, leading to global warming and climate change.
- When you draw out the water, consistently and on an industrialized, commercial basis you contribute to the depletion of the ground water levels with disastrous consequences to agriculture, other industries, communities depending on it and the fragile eco system as a whole.
- Then you manufacture the plastic bottles by burning more coal to generate electricity to run your bottling plants which fill the bottles with water that you “treat” with chemicals and other processes like reverse osmosis etc. The effluent is put back into the system with its own attending problems leading to contamination.
- The bottled water is then labeled, chilled, put into cartons and shipped, again by energy guzzling processes with huge carbon footprints that do not even get a mention in the fine print
- The finished product is then consumed and the bottles tossed with total disregard. These used plastic bottles are like cancer to the environment, as they are neither bio degradable nor eco friendly.
- Oh I forgot, millions of Dollars – dollars that could have been gainfully used to address global concerns of hunger, education or for that matter access to safe drinking water – are spent on advertising so that demand can be created for something that we do not need. Friends, you have seen the blockbuster “Cola Wars”, Cola Capitalism as some called it. Now see the bigger, grander and better sequel “Water Strikes Back”.
In the United States itself, an average bottle of drinking water costs $3 while the cost of an equivalent amount of tap water is less than one cent. Yes, even industry spokespersons accept the fact that more than 90 percent of the cost of a bottle of drinking water is attributed to everything else (including profit) save the actual water that you drink.
The Bottled Water in India Org, which claims to be “an honest portal on Indian Bottled Water Industry” has some interesting statistics. It claims that consumption patterns are skewed with the economically advanced western states of India consuming much more than the relatively weaker eastern states. It also states that Southern India has large concentration of bottling plants – more than 55 % of the 3400 bottling plants in India. Does it make sense, considering the fact that the Southern States are water starved, especially Tamil Nadu which is perpetually at war for its share of river water? Another case of “River wise and Bottle foolish”?
The industry, which hires the services of some of the most erudite spin-doctors is vociferous about its efficacy and ascribes the boom-boom situation to:
- Burgeoning population
- Rapid Urbanization
- Phenomenal increase in Tourism
- Growing awareness about drinking water safety.
- Inability of central local government to provide clean drinking and safe draining water
- Strained government resources
Friends, as a student we were expected to study the doctrine of the Production Possibility Frontier. Wherein, with the given resources of an economy you could either produce X amount of guns or Y amount of bread or any combination of the two based on your priorities. Here too, the question boils down to a matter of priorities – you can either spend your resources for the greatest common good, or allow the profiteers to use them to lay their coffers by peddling things that the population “does not need” as “essentials”.
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