http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/
Oh but wait.. it seems that there is another side to this story. Let's hear what Mr Bottle of Water has to say about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwV2JpFnxWM
^^ Haha! Consumer driven? Like we asked for Perrier and Evian in the beginning.
The problem with Mr. Bottle's argument is that even contemporary Aquifina and Dasani, and others, are tap water anyways.
Plus, the mass manufacturing, the energy needed to make plastic bottles, (each year, enough to fuel one million [1,000,000] cars), is an unchallengeable point.
Additionally, regardless of recycling efforts, they do ship waste to other countries, which is still a huge problem.
And yes, in many places water is polluted, but in many places people have good water already. People in rural areas with clean water still buy bottled water for some strange reason, and one can't reason that (rural consumption) away with "consumer demand".
The market came to them. They didn't go to the market.
In my area, we get our tap water from northern water reserves, our water shed, which are underground springs. But people around here still drink bottled water. But, when they go north, they feel cool to bring back jugs of water from that same spring.
Plus they do put semiotic images on the bottled water. Why do they need to?