They say water shouldn’t be a commodity, but why should water be free? Why is it different from food, which we also need to live, or shelter?”

But its green wooden door opens not to reveal a rag rug and a woodstove but yet another door—a serious-looking door made of thick steel that can be breached only with the right combination of keys, codes, and security cards. Behind it are cameras and a motion detector.

Manufacturing and filling plastic water bottles consumes twice as much water as the bottle will ultimately contain,

In 2007, half the nation didn’t have access to clean water. Flash floods during the rainy season lead to outbreaks of typhoid, leptospirosis, and dengue fever. During these events, Fijians are advised to boil their water or drink from the bottle.

in the United States, the industry takes only 0.02 percent of the total groundwater withdrawn each year. But it takes that in the same few places, not spread out over the globe,

“Well number one,” he says, also known as Evergreen Spring on the Poland Spring label.

“The body can’t store water. If you have more than you need, you just pee it away.”

But refusing Dasani in Des Plaines, I’m pretty sure, isn’t going to help a thirsty Indian any more than cleaning your plate will help a starving African.

Drinking too much water can, though, be dangerous. In January of 2007, a Sacramento County, California, woman trying to win a Nintendo Wii on a radio program drank almost two gallons of Crystal Geyser without a bathroom break. She left the radio station with a headache, didn’t win the Nintendo, and died that afternoon in her home.