The walk from the FT to the Savoy Grill was longer than I remembered. It was a warm London day and I was running late. Arriving, I discovered to my relief that my lunch companion was running even later. “Can I bring you anything to drink?” the woman who showed me to my table asked. A glass of tap water, I said. You would have thought I had requested a lap dance from the ma?tre d'.

  从报社到Savoy Grill餐厅的路比我记忆中的要长。那是伦敦一个温暖的中午，我迟到了。到了地方之后，我欣慰地发现，跟我一起吃午饭的人甚至比我还晚。“您要点儿什么喝的吗？”带我到餐桌前的引座员问道。一杯自来水，我说道。你会想，这简直就相当于让她来一段腿上艳舞。

  After some disapproving shuffling, my water arrived as my companion slipped into her seat. “Some wine?” our waiter asked. Just water, she replied. “Sparkling, still or” – he gave me a sharp glance – “tap water?”

  经过几番不满意的推诿之后，我的水终于上来了，这时我的同伴也坐到了座位上。“来点酒吗？”我们的服务员问道。就要水吧，她回答说。“苏打水，蒸馏水，还是”——他犀利地扫了我一眼——“自来水？”

  Repeat this performance often enough and I suppose we should not be surprised that sales of bottled water worldwide have increased to 180bn litres a year from 78bn a decade ago. But future generations of historians will surely view our attitude to drinking water with astonishment.

  只要这种表演重复的次数足够多，我想，对于全世界瓶装水销量从10年前的每年780亿公升上升到1800亿公升，我们就不会感到惊讶了。但未来的历史学家一定会以惊奇的眼光看待我们对喝水的态度。

  Thames Water charges my household a little over £1 (€1.40) a day for all the water we can drink and as much as we need to shower, bath, flush the toilets and run the washing machine and dishwasher. Why would we pay a price close to that daily rate for a half-litre plastic bottle of the stuff?

  对于我家喝掉的所有水，以及淋浴、泡澡、冲马桶、洗衣服和洗碗用的水，泰晤士水务(Thames Water)每天收取略高于1英镑的税费。为什么我们要支付接近于这笔税费的价格来买半升装塑料瓶装水呢？

  Those of us who have access to clean and safe drinking water are the luckiest people on earth. Millions do not. We are also the luckiest in history. Until a little under a century ago, public drinking water carried with it the risk of typhoid fever or cholera. Only the very poor drank water. Those who could afford it drank beer or tea with boiled water instead. People with some money drank “small beer” – water mixed with enough beer to kill off some of those nasty micro-organisms.

  我们之中能够喝到洁净安全的饮用水的人，是地球上最幸运的人。数以百万计的人都喝不到。我们也是历史上最幸运的人。在不到1个世纪以前，公共饮用水还携带着感染伤寒或者霍乱的风险。只有最穷的人才喝自来水。那些可以负担得起的人则喝啤酒或者用开水沏茶。有点钱的人喝“淡啤酒”——水中搀上足够多的啤酒，以杀死部分肮脏微生物。#p#分页标题#e#

  Adding chlorine to the water supply changed all that. In his illuminating book, Wellsprings: a Natural History of Bottled Spring Waters, the American hydrologist, Francis Chapelle, says the chlorination of public drinking water “has probably saved more human lives than any other technological advance in public health history”.

  在自来水中加氯改变了这一切。美国水文学家弗朗西斯•夏佩尔(Francis Chapelle)在他的启蒙著作《水源：瓶装泉水的自然史》(Wellsprings: a Natural History of Bottled Spring Waters)中写道，用氯处理公共饮用水“或许比公共卫生史上任何技术进步所拯救的人类生命都要多”。

  So why do people still buy bottled water? Many say it is the chlorine that drives them to it: they do not like the taste. Except that in blind tastings, most people cannot tell the difference between tap and bottled water. My favourite tasting was carried out in 1997 by The Sunday Times. One supposedly expert member of its panel described a glass of water as having a “fresh, sweet lemony aroma”. It was tap water from a Birmingham public toilet.

  那么，人们为什么还要购买瓶装水呢？许多人说，是氯迫使他们这样做的：他们不喜氯的味道。只可惜在味觉盲测中，多数人都分辨不出自来水和瓶装水的区别。《星期日泰晤士报》1997年刊登过一篇我最喜欢的味觉测试。一位大概是测试小组专家成员的人称一杯水有一种“清新、甘甜的柠檬味”。它实际上是伯明翰一座公厕中的自来水。

  Others say they do not believe tap water is as safe as their governments claim. Drinking water poisoned people in Cornwall, south-west England, in 1988. In 1993, hundreds of thousands in Milwaukee suffered diarrhoea and vomiting after the water supply was contaminated. More than 100 died.

  其他人表示，他们不相信自来水有政府说的那么安全。1988年，饮用水导致英格兰西南部康沃尔郡的人中毒。1993年，在水源受到污染之后，美国密尔沃基市许多居民出现腹泻和呕吐。逾100人死亡。

  But bottled water has had its contamination scares too, although admittedly they have never hurt any one. Perrier had to destroy 160m bottles in 1990 after the discovery of benzene levels twice as high as those regarded as safe by the World Health Organisation. (Benzene is a flammable chemical used in the production of paint and cleaning fluids.)

  但瓶装水也存在污染问题，尽管不可否认，它们从未对任何人造成伤害。Perrier在1990年发现，其瓶装水的苯含量达到世界卫生组织安全标准的两倍，该公司不得不销毁了1.6亿瓶水。（苯是一种易燃化学物质，用在涂料和清洁剂的生产中。）

  In 2004, Coca-Cola recalled its Dasani bottled mineral water in the UK after discovering that it contained illegal levels of bromate, a chemical that could increase the risk of cancer. It also emerged that Dasani was processed tap water. Several of the leading brands are processed tap water.

  2004年，可口可乐在英国召回其Dasani瓶装矿泉水，原因是发现其溴酸盐含量超标。溴酸盐是一种可能致癌的化学物质。人们还发现，Dasani是经过加工的自来水。几个知名品牌使用的都是经过加工的自来水。

  In his book, Mr Chapelle argues that we cannot ascribe the vogue for bottled water to mere shallowness. Worries about water are buried deep in our consciousness. #p#分页标题#e#

  夏佩尔在他的书中主张，我们不能将瓶装水的流行单纯地归咎于肤浅。对水的担忧深藏在我们的潜意识里。

  Water-borne micro-organisms, he writes, “have had 3.9bn years to figure out various ingenious lifestyles for surviving and thriving in water. Humanity, on the other hand, has only been in the water-treatment business for a few hundred years.” Water fussiness is part of what it means to be human.

  他写道，水里的微生物，“花了39亿年，来领悟各种在水中和繁衍生息的独特方式。而另一方面，人类的水处理业务仅有数百年历史。”对水保持谨慎是人类正常的反应之一。

  But even Mr Chapelle's sympathy is strained by the bottled-water drinkers of New York City, whose tap water arrives from the Catskill Mountains, naturally infused with just enough calcium, magnesium and potassium to give it a truly delicious taste. Yet New Yorkers probably drink more bottled water than anyone. It is about fashion, he concludes.

  但即便是夏佩尔的体谅，也受到纽约市瓶装水饮用者的挑战。纽约的自来水来自卡茨基尔山，天然含有足量的钙、镁和钾，味道十分甘美。然而，纽约人饮用的瓶装水可能比其它任何地方都多。他总结道，这是因为时尚。

  People spend thousands on luxury-branded handbags for the same reason. But at least buyers of handbags do not receive an unlimited supply of nearly identical products at home almost free of charge.

  人们花数千美元购买奢侈品牌的手袋，也是出于同样的原因。但至少手袋的购买者不会收到无限量供应的近乎相同的产品，并且几乎是免费的。

  Still, there is a change in the air. However much people fear chlorine in their water, they fear climate change more. And climate change at least has some solid science behind it. San Francisco's city authorities and the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are questioning the environmental cost of bottling and transporting all that water. Coke and PepsiCo are promising to increase their recycling of plastic water bottles. We can all do our bit. Stand up to those waiters.

  不过，情况已有所改变。无论人们对水中的氯有多么担忧，他们都更担心气候变化。气候变化至少存在一些可靠的科学依据。美国旧金山市政当局与英国环境、食品和农村事务署正对将水装瓶和运输的环保成本提出质疑。可口可乐和百事可乐也作出了承诺，将加强塑料瓶的回收工作。我们都可以尽自己的绵薄之力。理直气壮地面对那些服务员。