Don't be put off by the apparently trivial title

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	• Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It Elizabeth Royte Bloomsbury USA, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Thirsting for the Truth about bottled water ....

Journalist Elizabeth Royte uncorks America's obsession with bottled water in BOTTLEMANIA, assessing the financial, environmental and ecological ramifications of this practice.

How safe is your tap water? How "pure" is that bottled aqua you are sipping from? How much water goes into producing and bottling that bottle? How did Americans come to the idea that sipping bottled water was somehow safer and healthier? How do we reconcile corporate interests with local environmental concerns?

Royte shows both sides of the issues without coming off as some tree-hugging environmentalist. She struggles with many of the same issues on the level of her own personal water consumption. BOTTLEMAINIA can be slow-sledding at times through some of the scientific discussion and its narrative of local meetings has all the thrill of waiting in line at the DMV.

Nevertheless, you may not view that bottle of Poland Springs quite the same way after reading BOTTLEMANUIA. In fact, reading BOTTLEMANIA may cure us of our "bottle-mania"!

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Water in every form

On a recent visit to Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park, the ranger commented that the water shooting out of the geyser was between five hundred and eighteen hundred years old. Does water have age? Yes, it does, and Elizabeth Royte's wonderful new book, "Bottlemania", explores water in its many aspects....how it is so readily available for exploitation, its packaging, its increasing relevance in our lives, and much more. As a natural resource, a commodity, a convenience and a company investment, Royte tells it all. If one thought oil was the resource du jour, stick around...water will trump it.

This is really two books in one... the author spends a good deal of time in Fryeburg, Maine, where the Nestlé corporation is doing battle with town residents regarding the extraction of water from (literally) underneath them. The battle is joined. Can the behemoth be stopped? But this is a more personal book for most of us, as well. Why do we drink so much bottled water when tap water is just as good, if not preferable? Again, look no farther than "Bottlemania" for some answers. There can be oil substitutes, but water is irreplaceable and the coming years could be a test of national will regarding its use and preservation.

Royte is an exceptionally good writer. She keeps the focus just where it needs to be and her narrative is compelling. Growing up, I never gave water a thought. Now I do. I highly recommend "Bottlemania" for this comprehensive look at water...our staff of life.

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Recommended reading for anyone who drinks water

As another reviewer mentioned, I kind of expected this book to have more of a global focus than it does, but what it does cover of the US it covers very well. I was especially impressed with the thorough comparisons of bottled and tap waters, and how balanced the author's approach was when looking at them; because it's written in first-person you can ultimately tell what her opinions are, but she spends ample time talking about how she appreciates both sides of the issues. Echoing the mentioned sentiment that "water is the new oil" I think it's in everyone's best interest to read books such as this one.

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Great! Fascinating!

I love this book.!! Anyone who is interested in the subject of bottle vs tap water must read it! Well done!

Don't be put off by the apparently trivial title

The title is cute and catchy and implies the book is a lightweight screed about the erstwhile evils of drinking bottled water. Yes, the initial starting point for Ms. Royte's inquiry was asking some simple questions about the impacts and equities of a corporation bottling huge quantities of Maine springwater. But this is an important environmental book, in the same league as "An Inconvenient Truth".

This is because Ms. Royte's simple questions about bottled water lead her and us on an exploration of a whole hidden world of our water and sanitation resources and infrastructure that lies behind our taps. How does bottled springwater differ from tap water in terms of harmful biological and chemical contaminants? How did the fad of chugging water out of throwaway plastic bottles catch on? Where does our tap water come from? How is it treated? Is that necessarily good for us? What is happening to the watersheds that all of us depend on? How can they be protected? How are water and sanitation systems interrelated? Are these groundwater and freshwater issues affected by other environmental trends, like global warming? And so on.

Like Ms. Royte, you will probably come to the end of this brisk, readable work knowing a lot more about your own water and sanitation then you did when you began and have a much better appreciation of the somewhat unsurprising policy conclusions she reaches: that protecting our public drinking water "commons" makes more sense than drinking water bottled at distant plants.

Although judging by the cute title and cover art the topic might seem a bit frothy and more of a treatise on marketing and product development, the author's target is much wider. I am an environmental attorney and have handled permitting and litigation involving public water supply and sanitary treatment systems and bottled springwater, and am impressed by how the author is able to get so much technical detail right, while keep it readable and interesting to a lay audience. Ms. Royte has written one of the best general interest books in a long while on an important, probably, THE most important environmental topic (other than climate change/greenhouse gases) of "wat-san" and preserving/expanding our aging public water and sewer infrastructure. In getting to those conclusions by starting her inquiry with questions about commoditized bottled water, the author attempts to be evenhanded and fair in her depiction of the corporate and individual actors without overly indulging in anti-corporate bias.

My only minor quibble is the omission of any discussion of state licensing requirements and associated testing and reporting requirements (where it says, e.g., "NYSHD Cert. No. ___" on the label in small type). However, that's just a small omission, although I'm surprised the Nestle people didn't mention that there are state reviews of their in-house analytical and production data, it would seem to make their case stronger that water quality is not merely self-regulated or conforming only to advisory industry standards (i.e., IBWA) with respect to periodic testing, labeling and allowable maximum contaminant levels. That small error however does not detract significantly from the quality of this book. I've just ordered a few more copies of this book to share with several friends and colleagues who I think would be interested, that's how much I'm recommending it.

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reviews: page 1, 2

An incisive, intrepid, and habit-changing narrative investigation into the commercialization of our most basic human need: drinking water.
Having already surpassed milk and beer, and second now only to soda, bottled water is on the verge of becoming the most popular beverage in the country. The brands have become so ubiquitous that we?re hardly conscious that Poland Spring and Evian were once real springs, bubbling in remote corners of Maine and France. Only now, with the water industry trading in the billions of dollars, have we begun to question what it is we?re drinking and why.
In this intelligent, eye-opening work of narrative journalism, Elizabeth Royte does for water what Eric Schlosser did for fast food: she finds the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that bring it from nature to our supermarkets. Along the way, she investigates the questions we must inevitably answer. Who owns our water? What happens when a bottled-water company stakes a claim on your town?s source? Should we have to pay for water? Is the stuff coming from the tap completely safe? And if so, how many chemicals are dumped in to make it potable? What?s the environmental footprint of making, transporting, and disposing of all those plastic bottles?
A riveting chronicle of one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth century as well as a powerful environmental wake-up call, Bottlemania is essential reading for anyone who shells out two dollars to quench their daily thirst.

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