In 100 years, when humans stop to ponder the appeal ofSoylent-flavoredseltzer, they’ll remember 2016, the year soda began dying in earnest. In addition to suffering througha 30-year lowin consumption, a possiblelink to cancer, anexposétying Big Soda to sham science, and a majorU.S.city taxspecifically targeting it, soda is also having a historically bad year for another reason: It’s going to be the one when bottled waterfinally starts outselling soft drinks. The industry has known these dark ages were on the horizon, but even the most recent predictions guessed the Rubicon wouldn’t be crosseduntil 2017. The one-year difference, it seems, is largely owing to bad circumstances: the fact that safe tap water gota pretty bad rapthis year, driving sales of who knows how many extra Evian, Aquafina, and Poland Spring bottles.
Lead contamination didn’t just make 2016 headlines out of Flint, Michigan; it was also a problem inD.C.andNewark, New Jersey. Equally worrisome is that theEPAsays America’s water infrastructure needs at least $384 billion worth of improvements, yet estimates only put the amount spent annually at about $1.4 billion. Do some quick math, and it suggests the country’s tap water should be all good by the year2290 — probably a wise reason to expect water sales to keep climbing, for better or worse.
Of course, it can’t go without mentioning that while Nestlé is the biggest bottled-water company, it’s followed shortly after by the soda industry’s big three: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and DrPepper. In other words, soda brands can shift without too much trouble to make a killing off bottled water, which is somewhere between700and2,000times more expensive than tap and is, as a bonus disadvantage, alsoway worsefor the environment.
