Windows opportunity for water and plastic management? The case for taxing bottled water

Where public supply has failed and made unsatisfactory progress in supplying drinking water, the private sector has readily stepped in to supply citizens with drinking water – most often to make big money. Much of the water bottling industry (i) provides a highly inelastic good, (ii) is immensely profitable and (iii) has significant negative externalities on public utilities, the natural environment and the quality of life in urban settings. The wide-spread introduction of a tax on the commercial water extraction and/or bottled or sachet water is ripe. The new mantra must not be “3Rs”, but “4Rs” – reduce, reuse, remunerate, recycle