As part of the Water Institute's WaterTalks lecture series, Daniel Jaffee, Professor of Sociology at Portland State University, Oregon, US, will present Unbottled: Plastic Water, Inequality, and Water Justice.
This WaterTalk will be held online via Zoom.
More information
In only four decades, bottled water has transformed from a luxury niche good into a ubiquitous consumer product, representing a $320 billion market led by global food and beverage firms. It sits at the nexus of the crises of single-use plastic waste and affordable access to safe drinking water, and struggles over the fate of public water systems. This talk explores the dynamics of packaged water’s rapid growth in the global North and South and considers the implications for sustainability, social inequality, and the human right to water. It addresses how bottled water consumption and spending in the U.S. vary along lines of class, race, and ethnicity, how they relate to uneven threats to and trust in tap water safety, and how the bottled water industry has responded. It also examines the diverse social movements that have emerged to challenge bottled water’s growth and their impact on the industry’s fortunes.
Speaker Bio
Daniel Jaffee is an environmental and rural sociologist and Professor of Sociology at Portland State University. His research examines conflicts over water commodification and privatization; the social, environmental, and economic impacts of bottled and packaged water; and social movements around bottled water and water justice in the global North and South. His most recent book, Unbottled, was published by University of California Press in 2023. He received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Website: https://www.danieljaffee.net