[smacktoward]

But who would buy it?

Contra the article, I would argue that there's three reasons bottled water became popular:

1) Convenience: no need to tote an empty container around with you, or find one when you're thirsty

2) Status signaling: a.k.a. "tap water is what the proles drink"

3) Collapse of faith in the efficacy of collective action: the rise of Perrier was driven by sales in the US & UK, and occurred during the late '70s and early '80s, the same time as the rise of Reagan and Thatcher and the beginning of the era we live in now. Guarantees of the purity of tap water rested on the authority of government, which people had stopped believing in. The purity of bottled water rested on the authority of the Free Market™, which was more in fashion.

Empty bottle plus tap would be much better for the environment, and probably cost people less over time than bottled water does, but it fails in comparison on all three of those points. And since history shows these are the points people care about, the prospects of the concept don't seem bright; at least not without another major shift in society.

[maxerickson]

Point 3 is confusing to me. In the U.S., government regulation of water quality got a lot stronger in the 1970s:

http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations/history-clean-water-act

http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/index.cfm

Between that, advances in technology and the wider deployment of municipal water supplies, U.S. tap water is probably as clean and safe as it has ever been, at least since the beginning of the industrial era.

[smacktoward]

I'm referring to public perception, not facts.

The environmental wave that was symbolized by the first Earth Day resulted in lots of environmental policy improvements in the US by the end of the '70s. But by the time those policy improvements happened, public sentiment had turned away from collective action towards private, market-based action.

Remember, laws lag public opinion, they don't lead it. So the laws that pass today are responses to public opinion as it stood at some point in the past.