Book Log 2008 #53: Bottlemania by Elizabeth Royte

While it's easy enough to say that this book is looking to do for bottled water what Garbage Land did for trash, I don't think it's quite the same. Royte undertakes a very similar path, going out into the field to visit sources and the people behind the bottles, but I don't think this took as global a look as it could have. She spends a lot of time discussing the conflict between Nestle and various towns in Maine over obtaining water for Poland Springs, and it's a very interesting story, but I felt like there were other items - such as the marketing aspect of bottled water and the denigration of tap water - that would have benefitted from more attention.

That being said, the book does a very good job of demonstrating how something that most of us don't see as a problem could become a very significant one in the near future. Very much worth a read.