Taking the Waters

Water sommeliers, five-figure bottles the market for old-fashioned H2O has never been stronger. Tamar Adler investigates.

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Im in the Atlantic Ocean off Rockaway Beach in New York, on a 36-degree day in mid-January. The last few years have seen dozens of studies citing the benefits of cold-water swimming for longevity. If I don't get hypothermia, I may live forever. That's not why I'm splashing in the ocean in a Speedo, though, with 20 other swimmers.

I'm risking death by freezing because I'm contemplating our most fetishized and most threatened natural resource.

And what better vantage from which to do it? "As Coleridge said: 'Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink," I observe through chattering teeth to a fellow swimmer, attired in a string bikini and black neoprene booties. Before I can explain that I'm being both literal and metaphorical, I realize that I can't feel my feet.

I'm referring to humanity's water crisis. In one sense, we live at peak water-in thalassic terms, you might call it the crest of a wave. The global market for bottled water is worth over $300 billion. Stanley cups-extra-large adult sippy vessels required for #WaterTok-have gone viral, with a Cosmo Pink Galentine's Day drop listed for $250 on Poshmark.

On the other hand, all the hype obscures a fact: The future of water must look different than the past. Not only because of obvious portents of climate change-see: a flooded Los Angeles in February, or a 2023 drought that cut Spain's olive oil production in half.

This January, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released a study that found the average liter of bottled water contains about 240,000 bits of micro- and nanoplastics. (A quick primer from the Ocean Conservancy's Anja Brandon, PhD: "Nanoplastics are the next size down from microplastics the vast majority are secondary microplastics that shed from other plastics or break down in the environment."