The “human right to water” was ratified by the United Nations member states in 2010 but there consternation ever since about how this right is to be guaranteed. It has been labelled as "empty signifier" (Sultana & Loftus 2015; Swyngedouw 2013) that would as likely be supported international bottled water businesses as it would from water activists that oppose them (Pacheco-Vega 2020). Fulfilment of the right to drinking water especially has been ratcheted up by the Sustainable Development Goal target 6.1, calling for "[u]niversal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all” by the year 2030.

This discussion is about a bottom of the pyramid bottled business in Cambodia called “Teuk Saat 1001” and a nation-wide network of franchised water kiosks distributing treated drinking water to rural and peri-urban households. It is instrumental to the Cambodian Government’s strategy to achieve SDG target 6.1 five years early by 2025, despite it making negligible investments in rural household water infrastructures. The model has support from international development aid and corporate philanthropy. By drawing on fieldwork in eastern Cambodia I provide a three stage presentation: firstly the impact of the model on the subjectivities of local entrepreneurs who run the kiosks and villagers who consume the water is highlighted alongside a framing of processes through commoning protocols (Gibson-Graham et al. 2016); secondly temporal concerns related to enterprising non-profit organisations are raised in general along with the operation of a bottom-of the-pyramid business in a context where authoritarian politics is normalised; thirdly material culture is considered in relation to the effects of the 20Litre bottle devices on water discourse and water practices.