History 101 (2020) s02e05 Episode Script
Bottled Water
1
It's an acquired taste.
Remember the first time you drank
some big, bold red wine as a kid?
You probably didn't like it.
It's 2008.
This might look like a wine tasting,
but what people are actually sampling
is bottled water.
As soon as you start realizing
that water is not water,
you start seeing differences in water.
But it's only if you don't pay attention
you think water's water.
It's all about fancy bottles,
different tastes, and mineral contents.
Baby boomers are aging.
People don't do
the two-martini lunches anymore,
but they still want
something nice in their hand.
Today, there's no shortage
of options for the HO connoisseur.
Bottled water is everywhere.
There's glacial water,
oxygen water,
and yes, you can even buy bottled rain.
Bottled water is now
the US's favorite beverage,
consumed more
than any other packaged drink.
As of 2020,
around the globe,
humans drink more than 400 billion liters
of bottled water per year.
That's more than gushes
over Niagara Falls every day.
In the US, to drink the recommended
eight glasses of water a day from a tap
costs around 66 cents a year.
The same amount of bottled water,
around $1,163 a year.
That's like paying $10,000
for a sandwich.
Much of the cost comes from making,
marketing, and distributing the bottles,
more than two-thirds of which
never get recycled.
Bottled water's sold to us as a healthier
and a better-tasting alternative
to tap water,
but is it all just a sales trick
pushing a product
that's essentially free?
And at what cost?
There's no two ways about it.
We all have to drink water.
It's a life-sustaining element.
Luckily, nature provides it for free.
Mathematically speaking,
one inch of rainfall in the district
gives the city one week's supply of water.
During the 1950s,
in most developed countries,
when you're thirsty at home,
you can drink from a dependable tap
thanks to chlorination.
So why pay for it?
In the 1960s,
bottled water from natural springs
is sold in the US and Europe
as a niche health product,
mainly in pharmacies.
Evian is a flat water from France
that's naturally fortified
with calcium and magnesium.
The company's marketing
targets mothers and babies.
Monsieur Fauche, how many
of these bottles do you sell in a year?
Last year we sold 291 million bottles.
But bottled mineral water
is mostly only popular in Europe.
In the US,
the drink people prefer to buy is soda.
They're still used
to getting their water for free.
But that all changes in 1976.
Bubbly French mineral water Perrier,
with their green, iconic-shaped bottles,
decides to take on America,
just as the health-food movement
is taking off.
Perrier thinks they can market themselves
as a zero-calorie mixer,
an alternative to sugary drinks.
And they hire
marketing genius Bruce Nevins.
He's the guy who transformed Levi jeans
from utility farm wear
to a global fashion brand.
Nevins's first step?
Play on the perceived glamour
of French chic.
Inherent in the product is the fact
that it is imported, it is French,
and so therefore,
you're gonna have a certain built-in
what you call snob appeal.
Just before the US launch,
he flies 60 journalists to France
to visit the single source
where all Perrier
bubbles out of the ground.
Then,
Nevins gets busy
linking Perrier to health
sponsoring marathons,
just as long-distance running
takes off in America.
He even runs in one himself.
Nevins plugs Perrier
as the Earth's first soft drink.
And in the way natural fizzy water
like Perrier is created,
it kind of is.
Sparkling mineral spring water
begins as rain
that seeps through layers of rock
formed millions of years ago.
On the way down,
it absorbs healthy minerals
like calcium and magnesium.
Carbon dioxide also rises up
to meet the groundwater
from volcanic magma deep underground.
Under pressure,
this gas gives the water
a natural carbonation, the bubbles.
It can take thousands of years
before it emerges as a natural spring.
And it's fizzy to drink
right out of the ground.
Nevins's plot to conquer America works.
In three years,
he's taken Perrier sales from $600,000
to a whopping $60 million.
From its base on Lake Geneva,
French rival Evian
sees Perrier's runaway success
and decides to revamp
its marketing in America too.
Forget touting its nutritional benefits.
Evian switches to selling itself
as a lifestyle accessory.
Clearly, they're onto something,
as total bottled-water sales
in the US multiply
from more than one billion liters in 1976
to about five billion in 1985.
Evian becomes
the go-to brand for celebrities.
Actor Jack Nicholson even smuggles
a bottle into the Oscars in 1990.
And Evian is never far from the catwalk.
But while Evian is for fashionistas,
Perrier remains the water of choice
for power dining.
At least until February 1990,
when disaster strikes.
The bubble of Perrier's success
burst in dramatic fashion.
Last Friday, Perrier shares
took a sudden dive in Paris,
the day before the US announcement
of benzene contamination.
A chemical
linked to cancer in animals
is found in 13 bottles of Perrier.
They're forced to remove 160 million
of them from supermarket shelves.
It's one of the biggest recalls
the food and drinks industry
has ever seen.
Their market share shrinks from 45%
to just 21%.
Still, bottled water remains
a hot commodity.
In fact, Perrier's disaster leaves
an opening for competitors like Evian
and Saratoga.
From 1985 to 1992,
total bottled-water sales
in the US almost double,
reaching around ten billion liters a year.
That's enough bottles to make a pile
higher than the world's tallest building
three times over.
But soda is still outselling
bottled water by five to one.
By the mid-'90s,
bottled water's chief competitor, soda,
is suffering a fall from grace.
Public-health officials
start citing sugary drinks
as one of the root causes
of America's obesity epidemic.
Statistics showing students
swallowing 700 cans of cola a year,
carbonated companies making mega money,
while critics claiming
health problems start with soda.
Meanwhile, bottled water,
seen as a healthy alternative,
continues to take off.
It's so fashionable,
Chanel even designs a bottle holder
for their spring 1994 collection.
There's even bottled water for pets,
with crispy beef flavor for dogs
and tangy fish flavor for cats.
With bottled water
now firmly established in the US,
Big Soda decides
if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
In 1994,
PepsiCo launches Aquafina,
and Coca-Cola follows in 1999 with Dasani.
It's an entirely made-up name,
but focus groups agree it suggests purity,
relaxation, and replenishment.
There's a big difference
with these newcomers though,
one they're not exactly broadcasting
to the public.
They're selling something
called purified water,
which uses nothing more
than municipal tap water.
What makes it purified?
An industrial process
that soda companies
are already familiar with
for their soft drinks.
It's called reverse osmosis
and works something like this.
Filtered tap water is forced
through membranes that remove bacteria,
viruses,
and any harmful chemicals.
And carbon filters extract any chlorine.
Also filtered out?
Healthy minerals
such as magnesium and calcium.
Then ozone is added
to kill any remaining bacteria.
And because the process
uses everyday tap water
often sourced from a local reservoir,
it's cheap.
No natural springs required.
By the late '90s,
a series of health scares
over the quality of tap water in the US
send people to bottled water in droves.
Environmentalists claim
a weed killer going on corn crops
is winding up in baby formula.
The weed killer washes off crops,
gets into groundwater,
and that ends up at your tap.
Public trust in tap water
takes a big hit,
though it's held
to similar safety standards
as bottled water.
A lot of people are paying more money
for bottled water,
and they think it's better than tap water.
Bottled-water companies
start to roll out products
that seem more nutritious,
like the first vitamin-enhanced
smart water, Glaceau.
Bottled water has a cachet
that tap water just can't match,
and it's convenient to carry.
In the 2000s,
the public's thirst
for water in cheap, plastic bottles
just keeps growing.
And there's plenty more
to supply the market,
because a lot of the water comes
from reservoirs, not actual springs.
By 2001,
US bottled-water sales
reach over 23 billion liters per year.
That's enough water to fill a bath
for every person in the United States.
The worldwide market
is worth approximately $67 billion.
By 2003,
US bottled-water sales
reach 28 billion liters.
That's around
16 billion plastic bottles of water,
a pile taller
than 13 Great Pyramids of Giza.
Public health messaging in the early 2000s
advises people to drink
a recommended amount of water per day,
and that gives bottled water
even more rocket fuel.
I at least drink one of these a day.
A liter a day.
And if you can drink more than that,
that would be great,
especially in this heat.
Water is liquid gold,
and everyone wants
to muscle in on the business.
Trump Ice launches in 2003.
He claims it's
the purest, best-tasting water imaginable.
In 2006,
Sylvester Stallone announces Sly Water,
sourced from a 10,000-year-old glacier
in Mount Rainier National Park.
It's promoted as free of pollutants.
Americans are now spending
more than $11 billion every year
on bottled water,
more than they spend on movie tickets.
But that same year,
Fiji Water wades into controversy.
Fiji Water launches an ad campaign
promoting the purity of their water
by dissing Cleveland,
a city whose river used to be so polluted,
it repeatedly caught fire.
It's since been cleaned up.
Outraged,
Cleveland's public-utilities director
orders tests of both Fiji bottled water
and Cleveland tap water.
The result?
Fiji's water, while safe,
contains traces of arsenic.
Cleveland's has none.
It's a public-relations fiasco.
Cleveland, one. Fiji, zero.
Fiji is forced to pull the ads,
and the blunder is named one of CNN's
101 Dumbest Moments in Business of 2006.
Around the same time,
consumer-activist group
Corporate Accountability International
goes public with accusations
that some bottled waters
are misrepresenting their products.
As a result,
PepsiCo agrees to change their labels.
It has agreed to reveal
the source of the water
that it uses
for its Aquafina bottled water.
From now on,
their labels will spell out
"public water source."
For many,
this is brand-new information.
I could drink my own tap water
for you know, for nothing.
And bottled water
has another problem.
The public is growing more aware
of the huge amount
of discarded plastic water bottles.
In 2009,
the tiny town of Bundanoon in Australia
becomes the first community in the world
to ban the sale of plastic water bottles,
promoting tap water as an alternative.
"Bundy on Tap" went global.
It's ended up with there being
a huge amount of councils and communities
getting in touch with us and saying,
"You did it. Now how can we do it?"
It's about encouraging
public drinking-water sources
that are highly visible and in your face.
Cities around the world
pick up on the idea.
In 2010,
Paris introduces a stylish solution
to weaning people off the bottle,
sparkling water fountains.
The bottled-water market
responds by upping its game.
Shops open dedicated
to selling exclusive, high-end brands.
A lot of people
are like, "Is this truly all water?"
They're like, "It looks like vodka.
It looks like alcohol."
"The bottles are gorgeous."
I wish they would do glass bottles,
so please forgive me.
Water sommeliers
help customers navigate the choice.
If I have a fish,
a very subtle fish dish,
I don't wanna drink water
with very loud-in-your-mouth
kind of firework bubbles.
But on the other hand,
think about a crispy fried oyster.
Now the bubbles
would work very nicely with that.
That's why I think it's important
for restaurants in the future
to have water menus and water lists.
2016 is a milestone year.
Sales of bottled water
in the US overtake soft drinks,
and it's no longer
just sparkling versus still.
Now the mainstream water market
is flooded with choice.
But as fast as sales rise,
the environmental crisis caused
by plastic waste, including water bottles,
grows more and more urgent.
In 2018,
Americans bought
71 billion plastic water bottles.
That's enough to stack
to the Moon 37 times.
And to make all those bottles
requires huge amounts of energy,
enough to fuel your car
for almost two million years.
The fact is
91% of all plastic isn't recycled.
So billions of bottles end up in landfills
and in the oceans,
killing marine life,
while some are broken down
and shipped as garbage
to developing countries.
Still, for places around the world
without easy access to public water,
bottled water can be a life-saving boon.
But these same places
are on the front lines of the problem
and taking steps to counter it.
In 2020,
Kenya announces a ban
on single-use plastics at beaches
and in national parks,
forests, and conservation areas.
Designers are coming up
with creative ideas
for recycling plastic into new products.
Big bottled-water companies
have committed to use
more recycled material
in their packaging.
But that's just a drop in the ocean.
A better solution
is avoiding plastic entirely.
More and more people
are consciously switching
to using refillable bottles.
The company Ocean Bottle also works
to stop plastic entering the ocean.
New apps like Mymizu in Japan
help connect people
to water fountains and eco-cafés.
But sales of bottled water
are still growing,
projected to reach $400 billion by 2026.
We're at a watershed moment.
Marketing has transformed
nature's free supply
into a billion-dollar industry.
And a full 50% of all bottled water
starts as tap water.
So what is it we're buying exactly?
A container with a label?
A brand?
When it's fundamentally
just about quenching our thirst,
think about that
the next time you pay
for what you used to get for free.
It's an acquired taste.
Remember the first time you drank
some big, bold red wine as a kid?
You probably didn't like it.
It's 2008.
This might look like a wine tasting,
but what people are actually sampling
is bottled water.
As soon as you start realizing
that water is not water,
you start seeing differences in water.
But it's only if you don't pay attention
you think water's water.
It's all about fancy bottles,
different tastes, and mineral contents.
Baby boomers are aging.
People don't do
the two-martini lunches anymore,
but they still want
something nice in their hand.
Today, there's no shortage
of options for the HO connoisseur.
Bottled water is everywhere.
There's glacial water,
oxygen water,
and yes, you can even buy bottled rain.
Bottled water is now
the US's favorite beverage,
consumed more
than any other packaged drink.
As of 2020,
around the globe,
humans drink more than 400 billion liters
of bottled water per year.
That's more than gushes
over Niagara Falls every day.
In the US, to drink the recommended
eight glasses of water a day from a tap
costs around 66 cents a year.
The same amount of bottled water,
around $1,163 a year.
That's like paying $10,000
for a sandwich.
Much of the cost comes from making,
marketing, and distributing the bottles,
more than two-thirds of which
never get recycled.
Bottled water's sold to us as a healthier
and a better-tasting alternative
to tap water,
but is it all just a sales trick
pushing a product
that's essentially free?
And at what cost?
There's no two ways about it.
We all have to drink water.
It's a life-sustaining element.
Luckily, nature provides it for free.
Mathematically speaking,
one inch of rainfall in the district
gives the city one week's supply of water.
During the 1950s,
in most developed countries,
when you're thirsty at home,
you can drink from a dependable tap
thanks to chlorination.
So why pay for it?
In the 1960s,
bottled water from natural springs
is sold in the US and Europe
as a niche health product,
mainly in pharmacies.
Evian is a flat water from France
that's naturally fortified
with calcium and magnesium.
The company's marketing
targets mothers and babies.
Monsieur Fauche, how many
of these bottles do you sell in a year?
Last year we sold 291 million bottles.
But bottled mineral water
is mostly only popular in Europe.
In the US,
the drink people prefer to buy is soda.
They're still used
to getting their water for free.
But that all changes in 1976.
Bubbly French mineral water Perrier,
with their green, iconic-shaped bottles,
decides to take on America,
just as the health-food movement
is taking off.
Perrier thinks they can market themselves
as a zero-calorie mixer,
an alternative to sugary drinks.
And they hire
marketing genius Bruce Nevins.
He's the guy who transformed Levi jeans
from utility farm wear
to a global fashion brand.
Nevins's first step?
Play on the perceived glamour
of French chic.
Inherent in the product is the fact
that it is imported, it is French,
and so therefore,
you're gonna have a certain built-in
what you call snob appeal.
Just before the US launch,
he flies 60 journalists to France
to visit the single source
where all Perrier
bubbles out of the ground.
Then,
Nevins gets busy
linking Perrier to health
sponsoring marathons,
just as long-distance running
takes off in America.
He even runs in one himself.
Nevins plugs Perrier
as the Earth's first soft drink.
And in the way natural fizzy water
like Perrier is created,
it kind of is.
Sparkling mineral spring water
begins as rain
that seeps through layers of rock
formed millions of years ago.
On the way down,
it absorbs healthy minerals
like calcium and magnesium.
Carbon dioxide also rises up
to meet the groundwater
from volcanic magma deep underground.
Under pressure,
this gas gives the water
a natural carbonation, the bubbles.
It can take thousands of years
before it emerges as a natural spring.
And it's fizzy to drink
right out of the ground.
Nevins's plot to conquer America works.
In three years,
he's taken Perrier sales from $600,000
to a whopping $60 million.
From its base on Lake Geneva,
French rival Evian
sees Perrier's runaway success
and decides to revamp
its marketing in America too.
Forget touting its nutritional benefits.
Evian switches to selling itself
as a lifestyle accessory.
Clearly, they're onto something,
as total bottled-water sales
in the US multiply
from more than one billion liters in 1976
to about five billion in 1985.
Evian becomes
the go-to brand for celebrities.
Actor Jack Nicholson even smuggles
a bottle into the Oscars in 1990.
And Evian is never far from the catwalk.
But while Evian is for fashionistas,
Perrier remains the water of choice
for power dining.
At least until February 1990,
when disaster strikes.
The bubble of Perrier's success
burst in dramatic fashion.
Last Friday, Perrier shares
took a sudden dive in Paris,
the day before the US announcement
of benzene contamination.
A chemical
linked to cancer in animals
is found in 13 bottles of Perrier.
They're forced to remove 160 million
of them from supermarket shelves.
It's one of the biggest recalls
the food and drinks industry
has ever seen.
Their market share shrinks from 45%
to just 21%.
Still, bottled water remains
a hot commodity.
In fact, Perrier's disaster leaves
an opening for competitors like Evian
and Saratoga.
From 1985 to 1992,
total bottled-water sales
in the US almost double,
reaching around ten billion liters a year.
That's enough bottles to make a pile
higher than the world's tallest building
three times over.
But soda is still outselling
bottled water by five to one.
By the mid-'90s,
bottled water's chief competitor, soda,
is suffering a fall from grace.
Public-health officials
start citing sugary drinks
as one of the root causes
of America's obesity epidemic.
Statistics showing students
swallowing 700 cans of cola a year,
carbonated companies making mega money,
while critics claiming
health problems start with soda.
Meanwhile, bottled water,
seen as a healthy alternative,
continues to take off.
It's so fashionable,
Chanel even designs a bottle holder
for their spring 1994 collection.
There's even bottled water for pets,
with crispy beef flavor for dogs
and tangy fish flavor for cats.
With bottled water
now firmly established in the US,
Big Soda decides
if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
In 1994,
PepsiCo launches Aquafina,
and Coca-Cola follows in 1999 with Dasani.
It's an entirely made-up name,
but focus groups agree it suggests purity,
relaxation, and replenishment.
There's a big difference
with these newcomers though,
one they're not exactly broadcasting
to the public.
They're selling something
called purified water,
which uses nothing more
than municipal tap water.
What makes it purified?
An industrial process
that soda companies
are already familiar with
for their soft drinks.
It's called reverse osmosis
and works something like this.
Filtered tap water is forced
through membranes that remove bacteria,
viruses,
and any harmful chemicals.
And carbon filters extract any chlorine.
Also filtered out?
Healthy minerals
such as magnesium and calcium.
Then ozone is added
to kill any remaining bacteria.
And because the process
uses everyday tap water
often sourced from a local reservoir,
it's cheap.
No natural springs required.
By the late '90s,
a series of health scares
over the quality of tap water in the US
send people to bottled water in droves.
Environmentalists claim
a weed killer going on corn crops
is winding up in baby formula.
The weed killer washes off crops,
gets into groundwater,
and that ends up at your tap.
Public trust in tap water
takes a big hit,
though it's held
to similar safety standards
as bottled water.
A lot of people are paying more money
for bottled water,
and they think it's better than tap water.
Bottled-water companies
start to roll out products
that seem more nutritious,
like the first vitamin-enhanced
smart water, Glaceau.
Bottled water has a cachet
that tap water just can't match,
and it's convenient to carry.
In the 2000s,
the public's thirst
for water in cheap, plastic bottles
just keeps growing.
And there's plenty more
to supply the market,
because a lot of the water comes
from reservoirs, not actual springs.
By 2001,
US bottled-water sales
reach over 23 billion liters per year.
That's enough water to fill a bath
for every person in the United States.
The worldwide market
is worth approximately $67 billion.
By 2003,
US bottled-water sales
reach 28 billion liters.
That's around
16 billion plastic bottles of water,
a pile taller
than 13 Great Pyramids of Giza.
Public health messaging in the early 2000s
advises people to drink
a recommended amount of water per day,
and that gives bottled water
even more rocket fuel.
I at least drink one of these a day.
A liter a day.
And if you can drink more than that,
that would be great,
especially in this heat.
Water is liquid gold,
and everyone wants
to muscle in on the business.
Trump Ice launches in 2003.
He claims it's
the purest, best-tasting water imaginable.
In 2006,
Sylvester Stallone announces Sly Water,
sourced from a 10,000-year-old glacier
in Mount Rainier National Park.
It's promoted as free of pollutants.
Americans are now spending
more than $11 billion every year
on bottled water,
more than they spend on movie tickets.
But that same year,
Fiji Water wades into controversy.
Fiji Water launches an ad campaign
promoting the purity of their water
by dissing Cleveland,
a city whose river used to be so polluted,
it repeatedly caught fire.
It's since been cleaned up.
Outraged,
Cleveland's public-utilities director
orders tests of both Fiji bottled water
and Cleveland tap water.
The result?
Fiji's water, while safe,
contains traces of arsenic.
Cleveland's has none.
It's a public-relations fiasco.
Cleveland, one. Fiji, zero.
Fiji is forced to pull the ads,
and the blunder is named one of CNN's
101 Dumbest Moments in Business of 2006.
Around the same time,
consumer-activist group
Corporate Accountability International
goes public with accusations
that some bottled waters
are misrepresenting their products.
As a result,
PepsiCo agrees to change their labels.
It has agreed to reveal
the source of the water
that it uses
for its Aquafina bottled water.
From now on,
their labels will spell out
"public water source."
For many,
this is brand-new information.
I could drink my own tap water
for you know, for nothing.
And bottled water
has another problem.
The public is growing more aware
of the huge amount
of discarded plastic water bottles.
In 2009,
the tiny town of Bundanoon in Australia
becomes the first community in the world
to ban the sale of plastic water bottles,
promoting tap water as an alternative.
"Bundy on Tap" went global.
It's ended up with there being
a huge amount of councils and communities
getting in touch with us and saying,
"You did it. Now how can we do it?"
It's about encouraging
public drinking-water sources
that are highly visible and in your face.
Cities around the world
pick up on the idea.
In 2010,
Paris introduces a stylish solution
to weaning people off the bottle,
sparkling water fountains.
The bottled-water market
responds by upping its game.
Shops open dedicated
to selling exclusive, high-end brands.
A lot of people
are like, "Is this truly all water?"
They're like, "It looks like vodka.
It looks like alcohol."
"The bottles are gorgeous."
I wish they would do glass bottles,
so please forgive me.
Water sommeliers
help customers navigate the choice.
If I have a fish,
a very subtle fish dish,
I don't wanna drink water
with very loud-in-your-mouth
kind of firework bubbles.
But on the other hand,
think about a crispy fried oyster.
Now the bubbles
would work very nicely with that.
That's why I think it's important
for restaurants in the future
to have water menus and water lists.
2016 is a milestone year.
Sales of bottled water
in the US overtake soft drinks,
and it's no longer
just sparkling versus still.
Now the mainstream water market
is flooded with choice.
But as fast as sales rise,
the environmental crisis caused
by plastic waste, including water bottles,
grows more and more urgent.
In 2018,
Americans bought
71 billion plastic water bottles.
That's enough to stack
to the Moon 37 times.
And to make all those bottles
requires huge amounts of energy,
enough to fuel your car
for almost two million years.
The fact is
91% of all plastic isn't recycled.
So billions of bottles end up in landfills
and in the oceans,
killing marine life,
while some are broken down
and shipped as garbage
to developing countries.
Still, for places around the world
without easy access to public water,
bottled water can be a life-saving boon.
But these same places
are on the front lines of the problem
and taking steps to counter it.
In 2020,
Kenya announces a ban
on single-use plastics at beaches
and in national parks,
forests, and conservation areas.
Designers are coming up
with creative ideas
for recycling plastic into new products.
Big bottled-water companies
have committed to use
more recycled material
in their packaging.
But that's just a drop in the ocean.
A better solution
is avoiding plastic entirely.
More and more people
are consciously switching
to using refillable bottles.
The company Ocean Bottle also works
to stop plastic entering the ocean.
New apps like Mymizu in Japan
help connect people
to water fountains and eco-cafés.
But sales of bottled water
are still growing,
projected to reach $400 billion by 2026.
We're at a watershed moment.
Marketing has transformed
nature's free supply
into a billion-dollar industry.
And a full 50% of all bottled water
starts as tap water.
So what is it we're buying exactly?
A container with a label?
A brand?
When it's fundamentally
just about quenching our thirst,
think about that
the next time you pay
for what you used to get for free.