Obama Sips It, Celebs Love It--How Did Water From a Junta-Ruled Country Go Eco-Chic?

Just a few days into her reporting trip to Fiji to check out the source of America’s No. 1 imported bottled water, MoJo freelancer Anna Lenzer was arrested, hauled to police headquarters, and threatened with imprisonment... or worse. She stuck it out, and the results of her investigation cast a sharp light on a celebrity-beloved brand. Fiji Water,  her MoJo cover story points out, is produced under a military dictatorship, processed in a diesel-fueled plant and shipped across thousands of miles of ocean in bottles that use twice as much plastic as many competitors (yes, our intrepid factcheckers weighed them--and calculated how far some other brands travel to US store shelves. And then they sacrificed themselves and did a bottled water taste test.). Yet it’s focused its marketing on winning huge credibility with eco-conscious consumers, even claiming that to drink Fiji Water is to fight global warming. Lenzer’s story, “Spin the Bottle,” captures the contradictions and dilemmas of a “green” business. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

Speaking of comments, we suspect this piece will kick off plenty of discussion, so we're pulling together bottled water experts, industry reps, and critics, together for a live discussion/online forum, likely August 17. Stay tuned for the details--we'll promote it on the home page and also post the info here in the blog.