It doesn’t stop at wine snobs — now we have H2O snobs tooAn upper class restaurant in Germany offers not one, two, five or ten different types of water but 40 in total, from various countries around the world. It’s part of a new posh water phenomenon, writes Richard Farmer.
Bottled water
Why aren’t bottles recycled? ‘People don’t want water that tastes funny’
Australians were urged to recycle the more than 260 litres of bottled water they consumed last year. Yet none of those bottles were made from recycled plastic, writes Nicole Gooch.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Off tap on bottled water
Crikey readers have their say.
Bottled water: some hospitals pay big time, some tap into savings
Several of Sydney’s largest hospitals pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for bottled water, while other hospitals around the state buy tap water for reasons of cost and the environment, writes freelance journalist Elise Dalley.
Bottled water sometimes has contamination on tap
Bottled water is constantly promoted as pure and natural, but research shows it undergoes an industrial bottling process that actually increases risks of contamination compared to tap water, writes Nicole Gooch, from Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.
Video of the Day: The story of bottled water
A lovely (if slightly sanctimonious) animated doco on how the bottled water industry has convinced us all to pay bucketloads for something we can get free.
Why fructose-laden drinks when there’s a healthy option on tap?
In the name of getting enough water, Australia’s school canteens are selling kids a drink sweetened with 21g of pure fructose. When did we become a nation requiring constant hydration, anyway?
How bottled water made a dictatorship cool
Fiji water is one of the trendiest and most popular bottled water brands in the world — just the name conjures up images of lush rainforests, tropical climates… and a repressive military dictatorship.
GFC puts a hole in the bottled water industry
The once-booming market for bottled water has taken a hit in the economic downturn, as consumers remember that it actually comes free from the tap. Imagine that.
Banning the bottle: easier said than done
Inspired by the Australian town of Bundanoon, Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz decided to ban bottled water in the company’s office. But he learned that breaking plastic’s stranglehold in everyday life was far more difficult than it first seemed.
Bottled water ban may have soft drinks industry smiling
We’re not fans of bottled water or its environmental toll, but it’s not difficult to imagine that banning its sale might have unintended consequences, write Melissa Sweet and Professor Kerin O’Dea.
Bundy may go on tap
The New South Wales town of Bundanoon is poised to make bottled water history, writes the SMH’s Ben Cubby.
Bottled waterboarding
CIA interrogators at Guantanamo employed a civilised tool for the brutal task of waterboarding — bottled water, straight from the fridge.
