Italy is the European country that consumes the most bottled water: between 2007 and 2024, per capita consumption rose from 190 to 257 litres per year. And yet, we have an extensive water network, supplying water of the highest quality that undergoes regular and stringent checks. This apparent contradiction is the inspiration behind Imbottigliati. Inchiesta sul mercato dell’acqua minerale che ci sommerge di plastica (“Bottled: An investigation into the mineral water market that is drowning us in plastic”; Altreconomia, 2026), the new book by freelance journalist Luca Martinelli.
Martinelli, who in 2007 was one of the promoters of the Imbrocchiamola! campaign for the consumption of tap water in public places, traces how a continuously growing market has established itself, dominated by a few large groups, low-cost concessions and the massive use of plastic packaging. As Fabio Ciconte points out in the foreword, the book “is not a pamphlet against mineral water”, rather an investigation into a process of “normalisation”: how largely superfluous consumption has become the norm and is intertwined with the language of sustainability. Although, as Martinelli explains in this interview with Renewable Matter, the book is primarily a way of examining the relationship between citizens, infrastructure and public services.
In Italy, tap water is safe, tested and affordable. Yet we continue to buy more and more bottled water. How can we explain this “normalisation of the superfluous”, as it is described in the book?
I tried to answer this question by interviewing, in the book, a professor specialising in consumer psychology, Bruno Mazzara of La Sapienza University in Rome. He has helped me understand how almost everyone has now grown up and lived their whole lives within a consumer society, and therefore with a mindset based on the possibility and opportunity to have access to material goods and the prospect of constantly replacing them. Since the economic boom, the throwaway society – a model imported from the US – has also taken hold in Italy. As a result, people perceive only the immediate benefit of a bottle of mineral water: water that is presumed to be of higher quality than tap water, largely due to marketing strategies. It matters little that, in reality, we are mainly talking about 20 or 25 grams of plastic put into circulation on the planet forever. The “normalisation of the superfluous” stems precisely from this, from our mindset, which is now geared towards this direction.
Urban infrastructure – by which I mean everything from aqueducts right down to the tap in your home – actually has a much longer lifespan. Why do we tend to forget the connection we have with this kind of infrastructure?
Last week I was in the south of the Marche region at a trade fair, where I photographed an early 20th-century poster for a company that now manages the integrated water service but that I assume was, at the time, the same company that built the aqueduct. That poster highlighted the value of that public investment: just over a hundred years have passed, but it is as if today, in a context where people have completely lost the ability to understand the value of public investment in ensuring a service, the sense of what lies behind it has been lost. The integrated water service tells you that there is more to it than just the aqueduct: on the contrary, the most complex and fundamental part of ensuring the health and safety of our lives is what comes afterwards – namely, wastewater treatment and sewerage – which we normally do not even give a second thought to. These public investments are no longer taken into account; their vital – literally – importance for survival in our cities is no longer recognised.
Beyond marketing and social psychology, how much of a role do material and institutional factors play?
Likely, those in power – the people responsible for water governance and the integrated water services sector – were caught off guard by a market comprising only a handful of private operators, as this is an extremely consolidated sector. It is true that there are 250 brands, as I mention in the book, but it is also true that eight of these represent around 70% of the market. These few players, at a specific point in history – the 1980s, marked by the introduction of PET – launched the sector’s first advertising campaigns. Emblematic in this sense is the interview in which Enrico Zoppas, president of San Benedetto and Mineracqua, recounts to GBI Distribuzione Horeca that he had “democratised” the consumption of mineral water. At the time, however, those managing the water service were ill-equipped to counter that message. The timeline confirms this: it was not until 1994, with the Galli Act, that attempts were made to reorganise and structure the water service. Therefore, even those who subsequently launched communication campaigns to promote the consumption of tap water, perhaps through educational programmes in schools, had neither the spending power nor the influence over public opinion that television had – and still has – with its adverts and famous personalities acting as brand ambassadors for the mineral water industry.
Which environmental, social and economic costs are not factored into the price of the bottle?
In short, most water is currently bottled in plastic – around 80% – and if it isn’t plastic, it’s now Tetra Pak, which is the latest big “discovery” and the alternative to plastic: no less mineral water, no more glass, but Tetra Pak. In addition to this are the negative externalities linked to transport: few brands are sold throughout Italy, but in most cases those products travel hundreds of kilometres by road. Except for a few companies investing in rail transport networks – for example, Sant’Anna does so from Cuneo, after seriously damaging the entire Stura Valley – logistics still have a significant impact, as most water is still transported by lorry. Furthermore, from my point of view, there is also the issue of appropriating a public asset – a state-owned asset – at a derisory price. Concession fees, on average, are less than €2 per 1,000 litres of water, and this is another vulnerability, connected to the fact that – something I discuss with Legambiente’s national president Stefano Ciafani in the book’s conclusion – next year, 2027 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the royal decree that still governs certain sectors, among which are concessions for extraction activities and the bottling of mineral water.
To quote Legambiente and its proposal to set a fee of €20 per cubic metre: what would actually change, in both economic and symbolic terms, if that principle were applied?
Mineral water companies would likely have slightly fewer resources to invest in advertising, and this would help because it would make them less pervasive. However, the price would increase slightly, prompting some people to think twice before buying a bottle of mineral water. We know that people often look at the “premium” bottles sold in restaurants for €3 or €4, but the bulk of mineral water consumption is, unfortunately, domestic: six-packs of 1.5-litre or 2-litre bottles, purchased in supermarkets, with an average price – according to Mineracqua – of €0.24 per litre, which is so low that it obscures the negative externalities of the market. According to Legambiente’s proposal, the tax would generate over €200 million in additional revenue, resources that could be invested in communication campaigns and public service announcements to effectively highlight the quality of tap water, the frequency of checks, and the quality of the samples analysed daily.
Which would effectively be the Plastic Tax.
Yes, it fits into this logic, but also into a pattern of constant delays. In the coming years, it probably won’t tip the balance, because I fear it won’t materialise and therefore won’t change the situation, just like concession fees: it’s an issue that is no longer at the heart of the political agenda.
In this regard, I would like to refer to the dedication in the foreword to Emilio Molinari, the inspiration behind the movement that contributed to the victory of the 2011 referendum “2 Yes for Water as a Common Good”.
I realise how fortunate I was to have shared with Emilio – and with all those who founded the Italian Forum of Water Movements – a wonderful, extraordinary period of political reflection that put water at the forefront of our considerations about the kind of society we wanted to build. Emilio passed away in July 2025, and another extraordinary person comes to mind with whom I had the honour of sharing many moments: Stefano Rodotà. Both possessed a certain foresight, but in Emilio, above all, I found the ability to guide and inspire many young people, as I was back then. He guided them towards a commitment to the community. That is why, after reading his wonderful autobiography published last autumn, I felt compelled to dedicate the book to him. What struck me most about that autobiography is that water – which was a fundamental chapter for me, because that is where I first encountered him – occupies a very small proportion of the book: it appears around page 400. Before all that, Emilio worked as a labourer; as secretary of Democrazia Proletaria; as a member of parliament; as a regional councillor; and as a Member of the European Parliament with the Greens, always with a keen focus on crucial issues. This provides an idea of how fortunate I was to have worked with a person of such extraordinary political and human value.