(1845) Hiram Ricker begins bottling and selling
the springwater on his property in Poland Spring, Maine, as a cure
for kidney ailments. Poland Spring is born. The first shipments are
3-gallon jugs that sell for 15 cents at a local grocer.
(1863) Perrier water is bottled by decree of
Napoleon III “For the good of France”.
(1907) A plant with an underground conveyor
system opens at Poland Spring. Bottling room walls are lined with
Carrera glass for ease of cleaning; employees must shower and
change into white linen uniforms before work.
(1912) Halsey Taylor invents a water fountain
for drinking, founding an eponymous company to market it. The water
cooler office-gossip phenomenon is born.
(1968) DuPont engineer Nathaniel Wyeth (Brother
of painter Andrew) invents polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for use
in soda bottles. 16 years later, PET will feed a surge of
single-serve bottled-water sales.
(1977) Perrier, in the green glass, bowling pin
shaped bottle, launches in the USA, backed by millions of dollars
in marketing. Yuppies rejoice. Sales soar to $20million in its
first year, and triple that in its second.
(1989) The Los Angeles Times declares: “The
most intriguing (Fashion) accessory to come out of the ‘80s is the
Evian water bottle” of the French Company Danone.
(1994) Pepsi tests a brand of purified tap
water called Aquafina in Wichita, Kansas.
(1999) Coke introduces Dasani, purified tap
water with minerals added in. Both Coke and Pepsi put the water
through a hyper-filtration system in order to laud its purity to
consumers.
(2000) Poland Spring, now part of Nestle, opens
an enormous plant 40 miles south of Poland, Maine. By 2006, the
facility is producing enough each year to give a 6-pack to every
man, woman and child in the US.
(2001) Aquafina becomes the top-selling bottled
water in America.
(2006) Bottled Water environmental concerns
begin to affect American culture slightly.
(2007) As of 2007, Italians drink the most
bottled water in the world per/person at 50 gallons/person a
year.
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