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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
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