News | March 20, 2019
Featured in Business Insider
12 Facts That Show Why Bottled Water Is One of the Biggest Scams of the Century
News | May 21, 2018
Featured in Bloomberg
Bottled Water and the Damage Done: Coping With Plastic Pollution
Publication | December 11, 2007
Integrity of Science: Bottled Water and Energy Factsheet: Getting to 17 Million Barrels
The Pacific Institute finds that it took approximately 17 million barrels of oil equivalent to produce plastic for bottled water consumed by Americans in 2006—enough energy to fuel more than 1 million American cars and light trucks for a year.
Publication | February 26, 2007
Bottled Water and Energy Fact Sheet
The growing consumption of bottled water raises questions about the product’s economic and environmental costs.
News | January 10, 2019
Featured in Huffington Post
Fawning Over ‘Fiji Water Girl’ Ignores The Evils Of Bottled Water
News | September 5, 2018
Featured in How Stuff Works
Water Is Free. Why Do Americans Spend Billions on the Bottled Stuff?
Blog | March 18, 2013
Bottled Water
Sales and consumption of bottled water have skyrocketed in recent years. From 1988 to 2002, the sales of bottled water globally more than quadrupled to over 131 million cubic meters annually. Bottled water sales worldwide are continuing to increase annually far faster than almost any other category of commercial beverage.
Blog | April 17, 2010
Bottled and Sold: What’s Really in Our Bottled Water
There are some great stories in the book: here is a little one, about what's sometimes found in our bottled water.
Publication | April 17, 2010
Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water
Bottled and Sold explores the trajectory of water from a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last one hundred years.
Publication | February 26, 2009
Energy Implications of Bottled Water
Bottled water is a popular commodity around the world.
Publication | November 2, 2007
Bottled Vs. Tap Water: Video
For the Santa Clara Water District, the recent resolution promoting tap water over bottled water was a clear choice--a choice largely bolstered by Pacific Institute research.
Publication | November 2, 2006
Bottled Water: An Update
The 2004 volume of The World’s Water discussed the growing phenomenon of bottled use around the world, particularly in regions where high-quality tap water is available, as in most of North America and Western Europe (Gleick 2004).
Publication | November 12, 2004
The Myth and Reality of Bottled Water
Sales and consumption of bottled water have skyrocketed in recent years. Sales and consumption of bottled water have skyrocketed in recent years. But users should not assume that the purity of bottled water is adequately protected, regulated, or monitored; in many countries, such as the United States, bottlers themselves do most of the sampling and testing, which opens the door to fraud, misreporting, and inadequate protection.
Blog | April 20, 2020
When Utilities Shut Off Water for the Poor, We Are All at Risk
When a household fails to pay its water bill in full for more than a given period of time – typically one or two months – its water service may be shut off by the water utility serving the household.
Publication | March 25, 2020
Op-Ed: Hand-Washing Is Critical in the Fight Against Coronavirus, but What If You Don’t Have Safe Water?
The coronavirus pandemic is shining a spotlight on the weaknesses of social, economic and health safety nets we’ve long taken for granted, including our water system.
News | January 8, 2019
Featured in Circle of Blue
California Water Board Outlines $606M Bill Assistance Program
News | January 18, 2018
Featured in Fast Company
Evian Will Make All Its Water Bottles Out Of 100% Recycled Plastic
Blog | June 26, 2017
Make Public Drinking Water Fountains Great Again
In February of 2017, the Pacific Institute released a white paper entitled Drinking Fountains and Public Health: Improving National Infrastructure to Rebuild Trust and Ensure Access, which highlighted the limited evidence of a link between illness and disease outbreaks and drinking fountains.
Blog | March 9, 2017
National Geographic ScienceBlogs: National Water Infrastructure Efforts Must Expand Access to Public Drinking Fountains
There is strong bipartisan support for expanding investment in the nation’s water infrastructure as part of a broader infrastructure effort. But there is, as yet, little agreement about what specific investments should be made.
Blog | October 26, 2015
National Geographic ScienceBlogs: Breaking Water Taboos
The recent severe drought in the Western United States — and California in particular — has shined a spotlight on a range of water-management practices that are outdated, unsustainable, or inappropriate for a modern 21st century water system.
Blog | October 16, 2014
National Geographic ScienceBlogs: An Open Memo on Ebola and Water
As input to the ongoing discussions about how to meet and overcome the spreading risks of Ebola, here are some summary thoughts about the water-related components of U.S. efforts.
Blog | April 10, 2014
National Geographic ScienceBlogs: On the Back of an Envelope: That Glass of Water in a Restaurant?
And as appropriate, there is growing debate about what we, as citizens, communities, corporations, and governments should do to tackle water shortages and the bigger question of sustainable water policy.
Blog | February 21, 2014
Rural Water Systems Struggle in the Good Times and the Bad
The current drought is shaping up to be particularly damaging to small and rural communities.
Publication | October 18, 2011
The World’s Water, Volume 7
The World’s Water, Vol. 7 was released as the Pacific Institute headed into its 25th Anniversary year.
Publication | May 23, 2010
Water: Facts, Trends, Threats, and Solutions
Global warming will likely change rainfall and runoff patterns and seriously impact our water supplies both in the United States and abroad. Meanwhile, 1.2 billion people in the developing world still don’t have access to clean drinking water, and pressure from pollution, wetland destruction, and climate change is threatening to make this worse.
Publication | November 2, 2006
The World’s Water, Volume 5
In The World’s Water 2006-2007, Pacific Institute President Emeritus and series editor Peter Gleick convened Pacific Institute staff and others in presenting the fifth edition, covering some of the most significant current worldwide water issues: * water and terrorism, * preserving and restoring instream water allocations, * an update of seawater desalination, * the growing risks of floods and droughts, * environmental justice for water, * water risks facing industry, and * updated information on bottled water, international disputes over water, and the discovery of water on Mars.
Publication | January 5, 2005
After the Asian Tsunami Disaster, Water Crisis Will Remain
The tragedy that has unfolded over the past week in Asia reminds us of the power of water to both give life and take it away. As the death toll rises from the earthquake and devastating tsunami, efforts to provide all manner of aid are picking up speed and urgency.
Publication | November 12, 2004
The World’s Water, Volume 4
In this fourth volume of his highly regarded series, Gleick and his research team focus on the most significant current trends worldwide: how to meet the basic needs of over 1 billion people without access to clean water, the growing controversy over public vs. private water, the role of conservation and efficiency in solving water problems, and concerns about skyrocketing bottled water use.
News | October 27, 2021
Featured in Prism
California’s Drought Emergency Puts the State’s Vulnerable Communities at Risk — Again
Blog | May 28, 2015
National Geographic ScienceBlogs: The California Drought: Almonds and the Bigger Picture
California is a wonderful place to grow food. The climate is highly favorable; soils are some of the best in the world, it is located well to serve global distribution markets with major ports and other transportation infrastructure; and normally, some regions are relatively well-watered.
Blog | June 4, 2021
The 2021 Western Drought: What to Expect as Conditions Worsen
The American West has entered another drought crisis, with nearly the entire region (97 percent) facing abnormally dry conditions and over 70 percent of the region already in severe drought. State and local leaders are making emergency declarations. Water allocations are being slashed. We are already seeing fish die-offs and domestic wells running dry — and the dry season is just beginning.
Blog | June 12, 2017
Mobile Apps to Quench Your Thirst
Public drinking fountains used to be everywhere, providing a reliable source of free, high-quality drinking water outside the home. They are a great alternative to bottled water, with its steep environmental costs and high price (200 to 1,000 times more expensive than tap water or more).
