The global bottled water market has been in constant growth for a couple of centuries. Currently, it's as big as it's ever been, with no signs of stopping.
But custom labeled water bottles and plastic bottles weren't always around. The plastic bottle market is pretty recent, and it was the catalyst that made the bottled water industry grow exponentially. This led to many bottled water containers becoming popular nowadays. So let's dive into the history of the American bottled water industry to understand more about plastic bottles, glass bottles, and water bottle companies.
The History of Bottled Water
Water is an essential part of life. Every human needs drinking water to survive.
Although drinking water is a necessity to us, properly filtered water is a commodity in many regions of the world. Many water sources carry water borne diseases, so we have to be careful when looking for natural springs to gather water.
Because of the limited supply of natural springs of water, our ancestors had to find a way to safely transport water from a fresh water supply to other regions without it evaporating or spilling.
The First Water Containers
Since water bottles weren't a thing hundreds of years ago, our ancestors had to come up with alternative ways to carry and store water while avoiding water contamination.
At first, people used animal skin and leather as a way to move water from one place to another.
Animal skins were used to carry spring water from mineral springs to their villages in order to provide drinking water to others.
Eventually, when people started learning more about pottery, they built jugs to make the job more efficient. Carrying jugs was easier and had little to no spillage, so more water would get to their homes from the mineral springs.
Jugs were also considerably more accessible than using animal skin or leather. Pottery requires less effort to create water containers, which were used like water bottles to store water for later consumption.
Water Collection Containers
Collecting rainwater was, and still is in many places, a common practice to gather drinking water.
Because there were no industries back in ancient times, air pollution wasn't a thing. So gathering rainwater was an efficient way to store drinkable water for later.
However, water collection only became a thing after people created containers to transport water, since otherwise there would be no way to store it.
The Evolution of Water Transportation
Our current bottled water market takes significant advantage of transportation methods like vehicles and ships to carry water across long distances. We also have a very complex and efficient underground water distribution system with many pipes.
However, it took a long time for people to stop manually carrying water over long distances.
After civilizations started evolving, people came up with intricate ways to transport spring water from one source to another without manually carrying containers.
The creation of aqueducts and pipelines allowed water to efficiently move across longer distances with little to no input required from people.
This became the best way to carry spring water from the natural springs to a city and the easiest way to manage municipal water supplies. It led to many municipal water systems that are still working today.
The Beginning of the Bottled Water Industry
It's believed that the bottled water industry began to flourish around the 17th century. This was around the time people started using jugs and glass bottles to get imported water from other faraway regions.
During the 17th century, people started to notice the positive health benefits of drinking mineral water. Because of this, many people started drinking bottled mineral waters, making it a popular commercial beverage.
After the popularization of drinking natural mineral waters, people started moving large amounts of bottled water around. Since glass bottles were considerably sturdier than ceramic or clay pots, they became the industry standard.
The Start of the American Bottled Water Industry
The first commercially distributed water originated in 1767 at Jackson's Spa in Boston. Around the same time, other companies followed the trend. For instance, many companies in Saratoga Springs started heavily investing in bottled water.
Many people who drank bottled Spa waters believed the water improved their health because the mineral water has a perceived medicinal value. This caused the industry to grow considerably, making people reconsider other water sources in favor of bottled water.
Jackson's Spa became very successful in the bottled water market because of the way they used bottled water to distribute mineral water to consumers. Then, many other companies in Saratoga Springs helped popularize water bottling even more.
The Widespread Use of Bottled Water
During the late 18th century and early 19th century, the industry made significant improvements to its technologies. Among the many improvements, the production of glass bottles became more efficient and cheaper, allowing mass production.
After the industry achieved mass production of glass bottles, water bottling became widespread because it was accessible to the general public.
Later in the 20th century, water bottling evolved with the first plastic bottle. There were many differences between plastic bottled water compared to glass bottled water. The major difference was the price, as it became significantly cheaper to mass produce bottled water this way.
The Introduction to PET Plastic Water Bottles
Labeled Bottled Water is more popular than ever.
During the 20th century, bottled water began to reach consumers worldwide. Bottled water sales were rapidly increasing, solidifying the bottled water business.
The first plastic bottles were polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, which were faster and cheaper to produce than any other type of water bottle. Plastic bottles quickly replaced glass and became the industry standard.
PET bottles are made from a material far lighter than any other used for bottling water. It's also more durable and sturdier than glass, making it convenient for daily usage.
Bottling water began gaining even more popularity with PET plastic bottles since plastic beverage bottles were cheaper than other types. Because of this, bottled water consumption increased significantly, so the industry started making even more.
The Current State of the Bottled Water Industry
Bottled water consumption increased dramatically after the first plastic bottle, and it's been growing ever since. Currently, PET plastic bottles are used to sell more than regular water, like:
Carbonated water
Mineral water
Carbonated soft drinks
Soft drinks
Sparkling water
Today, almost all grocery stores sell several carbonated beverages from different companies, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Soda sales were significantly higher with the introduction of PET bottles, increasing domestic consumption of many carbonated liquids.
Many beverage companies like Coca-Cola are thriving in today's market, selling not only bottled water but much more.
Currently, Coca-Cola is the biggest packaged beverage marketing corporation in the world, selling millions of bottles daily.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bottled Water
Bottled water has an extensive and complicated history. Although it took a long time for us to move away from tap water and start making bottled water, it quickly became a huge success after that, and it never stopped growing.
