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Nestle Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For (bloomberg.com)

Nestle, the world's largest food and beverage company, has been bottling water since 1843 and has grown into the largest seller of bottled water. But a detailed report on Bloomberg uncovers the company's operation in Michigan, revealing that Nestle has come to dominate in the industry in part by going into economically depressed areas with lax water laws. It makes billions selling a product for which it pays close to nothing. Find the Bloomberg Businessweek article here (it might be paywalled, here's an alternative source).

4 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sigh. by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...falls from the sky for free all the time.

    There are many places in the US (typically in the West) where unless you own the water rights to the land you are on, you do not own the water that falls onto that land. So rainwater is only free for certain values of free.

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  2. Re:Problem isn't laws... Stupid consumers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or you can just bring empty reusable bottles to the game and fill them up at a water fountain once inside.

  3. Re: So.... fix the laws, I guess? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Demand a fair market price, if Nestle moves on let them.

    "Next to nothing" is a fair market price for water. I pay about $1 per HCF (hundred cubic feet) at the retail level, for water pumped to my house. That is about a 30th of a cent, or $0.0003 per liter. This is in drought threatened California. In most other areas, water is even cheaper.

    The prices listed in TFA are reasonable, and only sound otherwise to people that have no idea just how cheap water is. Any government is going to get way way way more from jobs and property taxes that they could ever expect to get by charging a few extra pennies per HCF for the water.

  4. Re: So.... fix the laws, I guess? by mspohr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    http://www.un.org/en/universal...
    (US has signed this)
    Article 25.
    (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

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