Bottled water in Mexico: From privatization of supply to marketization of water resources

Abstract

Recently, the human right to water paradigm has brought along heated debates with regards to the vital liquid’s marketization. In an era when drinking water supply for human consumption is under serious threat due to climatic change,when the world debate is centred on topics of water (in) security, it comes as a surprise that bottled water consumption in Mexico has had such an exponential growth, given its position as one of the countries with the highest degree of water insecurity worldwide. In this article, I present an analysis of the process of privatization of water supply in Mexico, focusing specifically on the extraction, bottling and distribution of bottled water. Using the policy regimeframework as an analytical tool, in the article I show that growing consumption of bottled water in Mexico is the result of the convergence of specific ideas with regards to tap water drinkability, a weakened institutional structure that yields against the enormous pressure of multinational bottled water supply companies, and the huge strength both marketing-wise and politically-wise that water bottling corporations are able to harness. The analysis presented here shows that academic discussions on privatization of water supply in Mexico have put aside the enormous growth of bottled water as a business, with the resulting marketization of water resources.