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Plastic water: The social and material life of bottled water

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How did branded bottles of water insinuate themselves into our daily lives? Why did water become an economic good—no longer a common resource but a commercial product, in industry parlance a “fast moving consumer good,” or FMCG? Plastic Water examines the processes behind this transformation. It goes beyond the usual political and environmental critiques of bottled water to investigate its multiplicity, examining a bottle of water's simultaneous existence as, among other things, a product, personal health resource, object of boycotts, and part of accumulating waste matter. Throughout, the book focuses on the ontological dimensions of drinking bottled water—the ways in which this habit enacts new relations and meanings that may interfere with other drinking water practices.

The book considers the assemblage and emergence of a mass market for water, from the invention of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle in 1973 to the development of “hydration science” that accompanied the rise of jogging in the United States. It looks at what bottles do in the world, tracing drinking and disposal practices in three Asian cities with unreliable access to safe water: Bangkok, Chennai, and Hanoi. And it considers the possibility of ethical drinking, examining campaigns to “say no” to the bottle and promote the consumption of tap water in Canada, the United States, and Australia

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Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

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Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press., 2015

Collation

1 online resource (xxiv, 260 pages) :illustrations

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262329521

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

Drinking water
Bottled water industry.
Bottled water industry
Bottled water.
Bottled water
Drinking water.

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

Gay Hawkins, Emily Potter, and Kane Race

Other Information

Cataloger

umi

Source

https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3096/Plastic-WaterThe-Social-and-Material-Life-of

Validator

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262029414.001.0001

Journal Volume

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Journal Issue

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