Taking the pledge to drink recycled sewage

"More than three-quarters of Australians say they would drink recycled sewage water. The Sydney Morning Herald/ACNielsen poll taken at the weekend shows that 78 per cent of Australians (80 per cent in NSW) would support the introduction of recycled water."
- We'll drink recycled sewage, say eight in 10, Mark Metherell, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 2007

As long as it's sold in a bottle.

Who drinks water from the tap any more? Certainly an increasing number of Australians don't. We're so socially aware about the superiority of bottled water that we suck it up from the limitless French and Italian sources to less costly but perhaps more lucrative flows pristine. Our supermarkets sell water that is bottled in China,

*We're now so used to water being a beverage to buy, not water to quench thirst, that water fountains are as archaic as a working public phone. We're so used to having a slug from the bottle at all times and all places that the thought of waiting till the court adjourns or the press conference is over, is — unthinkable. Indeed, not drinking bottled water or, in a long meeting, asking for glasses and a pitcher filled with water from the tap, might be considered ratbaggery.

WHO IS DRINKING BOTTLED WATER?

Consumer research suggests that bottled water is consumed by people of varying age groups and occupations. The large majority however tend to be young singles and couples, in particular females aged between 14-35 years.

Generally bottled water consumers can be described as being more health conscious, contemporary and socially aware.
- bottledwater.org "The Australian Bottled Water Institute"

*We is untrue. Not all of us drink bottled water, but enough and growing. The Age reported last year, "Clean, safe drinking water is vital for human health. While for most Australians this is simply a turn-of-the-tap away, increasingly people are buying their water in bottles. Bottled water consumption has doubled over the past six years. Global consumption of bottled water was 154 billion litres in 2004 - a growth of 57 per cent over five years. Australians consumed 550 million litres of bottled water in the last financial year - an increase of about 10 per cent. Demand for bottled water has even grown to include pets."
- Vikki Leone, Danger: Bottlenecks looming, The Age, 6 March 2006

All this prelude is an excuse to direct you to this gloriously splenetic, drunkenly truthful rave by Roger Scruton (who isn't against bottled beverages):

Bottled water is the greatest fraud in the whole history of food fetishism, The New Statesman, 1 December 2003