Water is now everywhere. It has become a modern fashion and health accessory, as ubiquitous as the mobile phone. Students have a bottle in their bags or in front of them during lectures, people are jogging with water, and office workers have a bottle within easy reach of their desk. The rise of water as a health product is underpinned by people's worries about modern life. Bottled water is seen as a natural antidote to what the consumer sees wrong with modernity and bad for their health—chemicals and technologies full of risk and hazard, genetically engineered food, low level radiation, harmful medications, and sinister viruses.1

Sales figures confirm that bottled water is the world's fastest selling drink. In the United Kingdom, consumers spent £1bn ($1.9bn; €1.4bn) on bottled water last year, a 70-fold increase from 20 years ago. In the United …