Water selling- A huge business in Mexico

As I was doing my regular reading I found a very intresting fact which really amazed me, Mexicans drink more bottled water than the citizens of any other country do, an average of 61.8 gallons per person each year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a consultancy. That's far higher than Italy, and more than twice as much as in the United States. The Beverage Marketing Corp. in New York City also said Mexico's bottled water market composes 13 percent of the world's total, and has grown at 8 percent for each of the past five years.
This really made me to wonder and think upon the reasons for the same. After a lot of research I came to the conclusion that, A rising mistrust of tap water is behind the thirst for bottled water. Other factors are also at play, like clever advertising campaigns by multinational corporations and the failure of the Mexican government to provide timely data on water safety
Rising mistrust on tap water is seen because Some municipal water systems in Mexico have fallen into disrepair, including in the capital, where a 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people broke numerous water mains. Some 30 percent of the city's water is lost to leakage.
The infrastructure is very old and obsolete. Even though there has been investment, it isn't enough. Runoff is seeping into the water system of Mexico.
For years, many residents grew accustomed to boiling tap water to ensure its safety, but natural gas prices have risen, making boiling expensive.
Not all the water is bad. Some provincial cities have improved their water systems, and Environment Ministry officials say that 85 percent of the water coursing through municipal systems is potable. Consumers, however, don't know when they might sip the other 15 percent. Many Mexicans simply don't trust the government to deliver clean, pure water.
That's where multinational companies with bottled water divisions - such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, France's Groupe Danone and the Swiss giant Nestle - have found an opening.
One can hardly turn on the television without seeing an ad of a lithe young woman in a sweatsuit sipping from a bottle of premium water or a woman in a bikini whose svelte physique seems due to the bottle of water in her hand.
"Drink 2 liters of water a day," the ads from Bonafont, a leading brand from Danone, say in block letters at the bottom of the screen. Another ad says: "Eliminate what your body doesn't need."
On street corners, vendors hawk liter bottles of water. Restaurants don't offer tap water, insisting that diners buy bottled water. Primary school students must take money to buy bottled water from kiosks. One brand uses characters from Looney Toons to appeal to the student market.
The boom in bottled water has an underside, too. Empty plastic water bottles litter landfills and roadsides at a rate that alarms consumer and environmental groups. Recycling experts say that only about one-eighth of the 21.3 million plastic water and soft drink bottles that are emptied each day in Mexico get recycled.
A Houston-based recycling services company, Avangard Innovative Ltd hence joined with a Mexican environmental services company last year to open a $35 million recycling plant in Toluca to handle PET, polyethylene terephthalate, the strong, light plastic that's resistant to heat and impermeable to carbonation, making it perfect for beverages.
For big companies, the boom in bottled water consumption in developing countries such as Mexico, India, China and Indonesia has been a godsend, since consumers in Europe, a stronghold of bottled water, have rebelled against throwaway plastic bottles as harmful to the environment.
Not so in Mexico.
Consumer advocates say Mexicans' thirst could be quenched more easily and inexpensively if municipalities provided reliable drinking water.
I think the state has contributed to these companies taking over the market and converting drinking water into a saleable product