Moving in for the kill

Bottled water booms as safety fears rise . . .
In twenty years there has been a sea change in the ways we have responded to little things around us. Take water. We do not bat an eyelid when picking up a bottle of water, when travelling, at Rs 13–15 a litre. The fear of contamination is latent, but real.
Reports on the quality of distributed water can be very disturbing. Nearly 40 per cent of water tests in Mumbai, says even a recent report, showed the quality to be not safe for drinking. Alarmingly, there were faecal traces, too.
The case of bottled water will unravel in big ways in the decade ahead. The sheer imperative of safe water is now being exploited for its vast commercial potential.
It throws light on other aspects of how the technology lords view the world. Here the virtues of technology are applied to one of the deepest and most significant myths of contemporary humanity: the myth of perfect health. Whether a passing fashion or not, this has been made one of the priority goals of Western societies, linked in a way to the overcoming of death, and expressed in a systematic war upon everything that might damage perfect health.
Pure water has become a major issue in this trend. The water bottlers publicity not only highlights the ‘natural‘ character of their water [self-evident because it comes straight from ‘natural‘, not yet polluted, sources], but even suggests that it is more natural than nature itself. ‘Man-made‘ water is claimed to be purer than anything nature can offer—which is indeed a theoretical and practical possibility—and as such contributes to the goal of perfect health.
Its advantage over tap water is no longer linked either to its taste or to the medically therapeutic properties of spring water, but rather to its biological quality and diversity.
Bottlers today claim that the product they offer is not just pure water, but specially pure water adapted to the highly diverse needs of [well-off] consumers: water for sportspersons, water for pensioners, water for pregnant women, for babies, for growing children—all part of the contribution of bottled water in general to perfect health at every age and in all circumstances.
If oxygen kiosks have begun to dot the commercial landscape in Japan, Germany, even in India, the emergence of ‘all water‘ restaurants [which serve all kinds of water from distant lands, in bottles made of various materials and in various shapes for collectors to add to their collection] appears to be part of this same phenomenon.
The new synthetic water created by Nestle laboratories probably also falls under the logic of a quest for ‘perfect water‘ adaptable to the health needs of different sections of the market.
Many New Players
Nestle is not the only company in a field that promises to be highly lucrative, especially in the underdeveloped countries where the commercialization of purified water—even through ad hoc street fountains—is becoming more and more widespread.
Nestle remains the world No. 1 in bottled water, with brands such as Perrier, Contrex, Vittel, Volvet and San Pellegrino. Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are also growing presences. Coca Cola, for example, is actively marketing a purified sparkling water called Bonaqua in more than thirty countries. Water treatment companies such as Vivendi are also showing increasing interest.
If Intel, MicroSoft and IBM have riden the economic tide over the last twenty years, the next ten years will see them fading, and the new dominant players will be Lyonnaise, Vivendi and other water giants who today sell water in a swathe of cities across the world.
No one knows what the water industry has in store for the future. It is quite clear, however, that if the future is left up to them—and to their logic of profit and competition—we will see ferocious new battles among freshwater distribution companies.
The global water landscape is at risk of major transformations, as a result of mergers, takeover bids and interlocking equity interests dictated mainly by the power logic of financ e and the market, for which the right of every human being to have access to water is a matter of secondary and quite subordinate interest.