Tapped

I finished watching this movie less than an hour ago and I'm deeply touched by the information presented in it. The documentary is well structured and presents an overwhelming amount of evidence which will change the way anyone thinks about bottled and municipal water. Both the "manufacture" of the water itself, and also where the bottles come from, where they go after use and how they influence our lives while they're with us. I see this movie has only had one review and a few votes since it came on this site. That is a crying shame because this movie needs to be seen by every single person alive. The willful absence of major companies such as Coke, Pepsi and Nestle is extremely telling in light of all the material presented. One can only hope that the small voice of this film will be heard over the huge booming commercial machine that these and other companies represent in the popular media. If you haven't seen this movie, simply watch it. It's that good and the information is something everyone should know.

This incredibly shocking documentary and the similar documentary BLUE GOLD (2008, see my review), made by a different team, need to be seen by anyone interested in whether the human species will survive. (One would think all humans would be interested in this question, but so stupid are some people, that they actually are not interested, which is perhaps why our survival is really under threat, namely that the human species contains such a very large proportion of idiots.) It used to be said of a boring person that he was 'like a long drink of water'. Well, the ways things are going, long drinks of water are going to be in such short supply that we'll never be able to use that expression again. This film, unlike BLUE GOLD, limits itself to the United States and the Pacific Ocean. The film shows in detail that public water is being taken by big corporations like Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi-Cola at the rate of millions of gallons per day, bottled, and then sold back to us as 'bottled water' at 10,000 times profit. And the idiot politicians who allow this seem to think it is OK, perhaps because their wallets have increased by 10,000 times as well for being 'friendly' to the ruthless corporations. The toothless, useless Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only one member of staff working half-time on the regulation of bottled water production in America! 70% of all bottled water in the USA is sold within the same state, so does not come under federal jurisdiction anyway. The remaining 30% is required to be tested, but the test results are not required to be filed with the FDA or divulged to anyone, and can remain secret within the private files of the corporations. So while municipal free water supplies are tested sometimes as often as 400 times a day, bottled water is effectively never tested. It often contains dangerous chemicals and contaminants. Since 1989 when bottled water began to become available in plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum at refineries, the bottled water for sale has often been full of deadly carcinogenic chemicals leeching out of the plastic into the water. The main dangerous chemicals are PET, PETE, and BPA (bisphenol A). Of these, BPA is the deadliest. So what does this mean? It means that water which is free (70% of all bottled water in the USA comes from municipal free water supplies and not from springs or wells!) is taken in gigantic quantities by large corporations, bottled in poisonous plastic bottles, and then sold to the public at a huge profit under the phoney pretext that it is 'safe' (but if municipal water is 'unsafe', why is 70% of bottled 'safe' water merely 'unsafe water' in a poisonous bottle?). But that is not the end of the story. The bottles are then all thrown away and make their way onto beaches and into the oceans. This is billions of plastic bottles per year. The Pacific Ocean for instance has a huge area larger than Texas known as a gyre which is just a vast sea of plastic. Every ocean has at least one such gyre. All the fish and other wildlife (turtles, seabirds, etc.) of the oceans are being killed by the plastic. In other words, bottled water is now one of the greatest threats to the planet, but even more urgently, it is one of the greatest threats to people. Don't you think it would be ironic if the human species ceased to exist because of bottled water? Wouldn't that just be the funniest of all cosmic jokes? For a species as stupid as humans, this is only fitting, that they should die with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a pathetic, feeble gurgle. This film was produced by the same people who made WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? (2006). The directors of this one are Stephanie Soechtig and Jason Lindsey, both of whom also co-wrote it with Josh David. They clearly had a much bigger budget and team than the people who made BLUE GOLD. Both films and their DVD 'extras' need to be seen together. They do not duplicate, but rather they complement, each other. And I shall here add something which I included in my review of BLUE GOLD: As Ford Madox Ford said in the February, 1924, issue of The Transatlantic Review, of which he was editor: 'That one should stand by and observe without a note of warning the sure shadow of doom engulfing a civilisation would be to display an equanimity passing the power of most men.'

I live in a major city. My tap water sometimes has unacceptable levels of fecal coliforms so they add so much chlorine when i take a shower my throat burns. Research the epidemic of prescription meds in tap water, municipalities are not equipped to remove them. I agree there are problems but trying to demonize everyone won't truly solve problems. Wish you had done more balanced report. In one part they claim water is shipped out of state then when they criticize FDA they say most of the water stays in state. They don't discuss job creation and local economic concerns. Also if this is such a huge industry, there is a need being met. My tap doesn't exist 3 hours from home and I'm not carrying a day's water supply on my back everywhere I go. No alternatives were presented.

Yes, you do get mostly one side of the argument. Is this a bad thing? No! Bottled water companies have had YEARS AND YEARS and MULTIPLE PLATFORMS to spew their arguments about why their product is great, so what's so wrong about one little movie trying to counter their claims? People have a tendency to attack individuals rather than corporations, and its just not fair. This movie brings up MANY different arguments and reasons why bottled water is bad. You will most definitely learn something from watching it, and most likely, you will learn a lot. They hit on everything--chemical pollution, plastic pollution and the mile-wide plastic pools in the oceans, water privatization/community water rights, and so on. This isn't just about the environment, and it isn't just about people--it's about both. Great documentary hits on many issues surrounding bottled water, and is well filmed. Watch it!

I saw this screened at RIFF yesterday and was bowled over by the quality of this documentary. I will freely admit that I had less than little interest in the topic of bottled water when I sat down in the theatre; by the time this documentary had concluded I honestly felt I had learned a life-changing lesson. Yes, it really is that good.

The cinematography is gorgeous. The sleek, concise presentation of fact upon fact kept me riveted - and as the point of a documentary is to inform, 'Tapped' achieved its purpose admirably.

I would recommend this documentary to anyone who has more than a passing interest in their personal health and that of their loved ones; any feeling of social responsibility for the welfare of their fellow Americans; and anybody who has ever been outraged by the casual exploitation of natural resources by morally bankrupt corporate giants.

I'm actually a die-hard capitalist (I've never hugged tree; doubt I ever will) but this documentary made me really angry.

I also recommend 'Tapped' as a learning resource for any aspiring documentarians out there - this is how it should be done: a compelling, well-balanced argument, extraordinary supporting evidence, imaginative presentation and truly beautiful camera-work.

I've never given a documentary 10/10 in my life, but this was the highlight of the Film Festival. Excellent!