Global Bottled Water Industry: A Review of Impacts and Trends
Abstract
The report examines facts and perceptions about bottled water in the global context.It analyses the geography, structure, trends, and drivers of the global bottled water market.It examines the existing knowledge on the quality of bottled water, its impacts on water resources, and its role in plastic pollution.It raises the question of the bottled water industry's contribution to the sustainable development goal on universal access to safe drinking water.The analysis considered only those types of bottled water that have little or no difference in taste from the tap water provided by regular municipal water supply.It is shown that bottled water is widely consumed in the both Global North and South although prices can be orders of magnitude higher than tap water.The current global bottled water sales are estimated at almost 270 billion US$ and 350 billion liters.The report maps and ranked the top 50 countries in the world by total and per capita bottled water sales both in dollars and liters.The Asia-Pacific region constitutes about half of the global bottled water market, and the Global South countries together about 60%.The USA, China and Indonesia combined comprise half of the global market.Germany is the biggest market in Europe, Mexico in the LAC region and South Africa in Africa.Singapore and Australia stand out as the leaders in both annual revenue and volume of bottled water sold per capita, with the USA and China per capita indicators being much smaller.
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