Across the world it may be the case that over a billion people do not have access to clean drinking water, but, across the globe bottled mineral water is becoming a popular supplement to tap water. The industry is expected to grow by 30% over the next five years but the environmental cost is "devastating". Across the world hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 is emitted by transporting the water to the consumer, and about 1.5 million barrels of oil are used to manufacture the plastic bottles. And when the bottle is thrown away, that's not the end of the matter. Few plastic bottles are recycled, with almost two thirds of them going into landfill sites where they will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to break down. And increasingly plastic is making its way into our seas. There is a mass of plastic off the west coast of the USA estimated to be the size of Texas. In the UK, Beachwatch's volunteers, who try to keep the country's beaches clean, have seen an 83% increase in plastic bottles found over the last ten years. And plastic in water eventually breaks down into a dust that may be making its way into our diets, along with all of the toxins that stick to it. But the industry is still set to explode. Luxury brands like Fiji water have seen their business quadruple in the last few years, and are now producing 600,000 bottles a day, with exports of 98%. And this is from an island where 35% of people do not have access to clean drinking water. Could bottled water be a triumph of marketing over common sense?