Sparkling or still Spring or tap Imported or domestic Flavored or plain There" s nothing simple about a drink of water, now that the bottled stuff outsells both milk and beer in the United States. In just a couple of decades, we" ve become a nation awash in bottled water—with tens of billions of plastic empties to prove it—transforming the
Drinking Fountain
on a city street into a dated curiosity akin to the public telephone booth.
How one of life" s basic necessities became a heavily marketed beverage in a plastic bottle is the subject of Elizabeth Royte" s new book
Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.
Royte, an environmental journalist based in Brooklyn, N. Y. , shares the many, sometimes bizarre, unintended consequences of cracking open that plastic seal.