The Dark Side of Fiji Water
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The producers of Fiji Water like to tell their customers that drinking their bottled water saves them from having to go all the way to the Pacific island nation just to enjoy it. Not making the trek is good for others reasons too—like avoiding the paranoid military junta now running the country and the police who are apt to stop anyone for questioning, even for just sending emails back home.
Anna Lenzer of Mother Jones found this out the hard way during her reporting in Fiji, where she was hauled in for questioning after corresponding with someone at a local Internet café. The interrogation included accusations that she was working for a rival to Fiji Water. “It would be good to come here and try to take away Fiji Water’s business, wouldn’t it?” asked the officer, according to Lenzer.
Despite its high retail cost, Fiji is the leading imported water into the U.S., ahead of competitors like Evian. Fiji marketing has positioned the company as “green” and charitable, and the water of choice for the cool and powerful alike, from Mos Def to President Obama.
What Fiji’s marketing doesn’t tell consumers, Lenzer revealed, is that people living on the island risk exposure to typhoid because of their own unsanitary water supplies. Or that Fiji water bottles are made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled manufacturing plant.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle (by Anna Lenzer, Mother Jones)
MoJo Forum: Does Fiji Water Legitimize a Dictatorship? (Mother Jones)
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