Reclaiming the Tap, Curbing Single-Use Bottled Water: An Agenda for Research and Policy

The dramatic global growth of bottled water over the past five decades, particularly in nations with nearly universal access to high-quality, low-cost public tap water, has generated a host of harmful environmental impacts, including a substantial contribution to the crisis of single-use plastic pollution, as well as negative social and economic impacts due to its far higher cost and unequal patterns of distrust in tap water. More recently, bottled water's rapid spread has produced a major backlash, which is increasingly linked to the broader reaction against single-use plastics overall. A surge of activity by local governments, civil society, and private businesses-employing a combination of policy change, regulation, education, promotion, and social marketing-has emerged with the aim of curtailing bottled water sales and consumption, expanding access to free drinking water in public spaces, and restoring trust in and consumption of tap water. This commentary reviews several key bodies of scholarship and outlines the scale, causes, and consequences of bottled water's dramatic spread and of growing public distrust in tap water. It examines a range of responses, including campaigns to increase tap water consumption, restrict sales and consumption of single-use bottled water by governments, institutions, and individuals, and expand access to public tap water, profiling several examples of such initiatives. These efforts have spread worldwide and achieved substantial reach and momentum. The discussion takes stock of these developments and suggests potential implications and research directions for scholars of sustainability, consumer behavior, and other fields.