Water is a basic need. But is it also a basic right? Or is it simply a product with great market value? Peter Brabeck, CEO of Nestlé, is crystal clear on the matter: water is an economic good. One road tanker of pure water costs Nestlé all of ten dollars. Once transferred into small plastic bottles, it is worth 50,000 dollars. The company slyly profits from the Western fixation on purity and food safety by presenting bottled water as the only kind of “pure” water. Water, the blue gold, has turned into a billion dollar industry. Bottled Life poses the urgent ethical questions Nestlé seems to refuse to.