>They say that by extracting ground water to sell, bottled water companies are actually draining natural waterways.

Okay but people have to drink somehow right? It's not like if nestle stopped operating that the demand for water would evaporate. It'll just cause another waterway to be depleted instead.

The other point raised in the article seems to be that nestle is taking water, which it pays little to nothing for, and charging $1/bottle or whatever. This sounds outrageous on the surface, until you realize that water in a well or whatever isn't really useful. You still need to bottle and transport it, which is where most of the value-add is. If people only needed water they'd get it from their tap, not buying $1 bottles. When they are buying bottles, they're paying for the convenience of water being available right then and there.