'The Story of Bottled Water' video goes viral

• By
• Hilary Henegar

Image by The Story of Bottled Water

Viral video offers the straight goods on one of the most insidious marketing strategies of our time

Check out this video, The Story of Bottled Water (made by the same folks who brought you The Story of Stuff), which has gone viral this week after its release on World Water Day, March 22, 2010.

Clever and engaging, the video pops the balloons on all our delusions about bottled water's benefits and offers the straight goods on one of the most insidious marketing strategies of our time.

"This is a story about a world obsessed with stuff... about a system under crisis. We're trashing the planet, we're trashing each other and we're not even having fun..." The Story of Bottled Water tells of the manufactured demand that made the stuff so ubiquitous, from scare campaigns about the "dangers" of tap water to fantasy marketing of remote springs.

One stat mentioned in the video that really got my attention: Every week, Americans buy enough bottled water to circle the globe five times! Every week! 

Between the oil used to make and ship the bottled water and the water used in its manufacturing and bottling, the amount of waste involved is stunning. And then you've got the problem of what to do with the plastic bottles after they've served their purpose—a problem that is left not to the industries that produce the waste but is passed off to municipalities to deal with and taxpayers to foot the bill.

And just in case you're thinking bottled water is more healthy, check out this post by Chris White about the region's recent water filtration upgrades, which officials now boast has given Vancouver the purest tap water in the world.

Watch it, think about it, do some reading and let's discuss...