Greenwash Watch: "Green" Bottled Water
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 02. 1.08
We do go on about the evils of bottled water, and have noted that no matter what kind of package it comes in, it is still a scam, costing thousands of times what tap water costs, and still requiring fuel for delivery. But listen to the language coming from big house brand bottler Cott, about its purchase of new water bottling equipment that uses a little less plastic to make a bottle:
"It benefits our business and the environment by enabling us to produce water in lightweight bottles at lower cost...It also allows our customers to lower their carbon footprint by shifting to lower weight bottles."
It gets worse.
They got their money from GE Commercial Finance, our ecoimagination friends, who drink the same Kool-aid and say:
"Working closely with Cott helped us tailor financing to meet their specific growth capital needs, while helping them become more environmentally friendly," said Luca Pasqualini, Senior Vice President of Originations at GE Commercial Finance. Ecomagination is GE's vision and commitment to put into practice our belief that financial and environmental performance can work together to drive company growth, while taking on some of the world's biggest challenges."
Cott continues:
Cott anticipates that the equipment will enable it to develop additional product offerings that are "green" in terms of the way they are produced. It should also be more environmentally friendly in regards to packaging by using a lighter weight bottle, which uses less plastic.
We say it again: There is no stretch of anyone's ecoimagination that makes bottled water green. ::CNN Money
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Nice post. We have added it to our green blog round-up. please add My Green Element to the treehugger blog roll.
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I can not stand this environmentally friendly bandwagon of major companies saying they are "environmentally friendly". The only reason they do it is because they can see this great revolution of environmentalism and are trying to take advantage of it by saying "eco" or what ever word just as a marketing scam.
If Cott actually cared a little bit he would stop bottling water, and tell everyone to fill up their glass cup with delicious tap water.
Actually, there is an exception. In countries where civil authorities have not been able to maintain a proper public water supply, tap water poses a very definite health risk and needs to be avoided.
As I recall, Italy has both a solid waste management crisis (mob influenced true, but my point remains) and a potable water supply safety issue. One problem of course contributes to the other - leaching landfills affect drinking water. This may well account for why Italy among developed nations has the highest per capita bottle water consumption. THey need it. Sadly.
People must remember that the problem isn't with bottled water per say, but with bottled drinks in general. People shouldn't give up bottled water for bottled soda, and in some cases bottled water is the only choice depending on the circumstance. When possible one should chose tap water over bottled water, but bottled water doesn't need to be eliminated.
I agree with everything said above, the whole thing is a travesty. Still, I buy 3-4 gallons of bottled water every week. Why my tap water is contaminated. It's mostly a city problem (I live in a formerly industrial zone) and partially a plumbing problem (trying to clean up our building pipes has been a difficult challenge).
When it comes down to it, I'd rather buy water than get cancer from the benzene in my tap that my elected officials and the companies whose waste caused the problem in the first place keep fighting over whose fault it is and refuse to clean up.
I hate to say it but I'm a part of the problem.
I agree with everything said above, the whole thing is a travesty. Still, I buy 3-4 gallons of bottled water every week. Why? My tap water is contaminated. It's mostly a city problem (I live in a formerly industrial zone) and partially a plumbing problem (trying to clean up our building pipes has been a difficult challenge).
When it comes down to it, I'd rather buy water than get cancer from the benzene in my tap that my elected officials and the companies whose waste caused the problem in the first place keep fighting over whose fault it is and refuse to clean up.
I hate to say it but I'm a part of the problem.
The fuzzy water color picture of some utopian landscape and the same old hollow statements by a PR-writer are so incredibly yesterday and soulless that I would highly recommend GE to get its act together and step into the 21st century. Green is more than that wash.
Plastic water remains a rich world's luxury-waste with the poor ones paying the most in the end. But instead of blaming the big evil companies, we all here in the rich world should live by example and limit our plastic water consumption to a minimum. We need no new snazzy packaging. Get out your Sigg or Nalgene or simply refill the good ol' water bottle!
Or get this: I am actually drinking out of a glass!!!
This is every product on every shelf of every big box retailer. I'm tired of hearing about water. Personally, I distill tap water (with wind energy) because tap water sucks. It is full of toxins. Hello? Your health? If I couldn't distill or filter my own, I'd buy it in bottles. TH suggests poisoning my family instead, but I'll pass. This with an article about environmental justice on the same day, and telling FEMA to take responsibility for knowingly putting others in harm's way. Time to walk the walk, TH. Do you want your minion to drink bleach or not? How about fluoride? yum. And be sure to drink out of aluminum, we don't want you to remember who to sue.
Another thought I had is will this "new lighter plastic" leach more estrogen into the water. From the research I have done lower grade plastics seem to leach more. And just from connecting the dots, lower grade plastic is often lighter then a higher grade plastic.
But I guess it makes no differance to me as I sit in my office drinking tap water out of my Sigg
A question I have to the people that buy bottled water because thier tap water is no good would be why not do a the big plastic jug thing that is reusable (I think its on a deposite system in most places) then get a hand pump for the top so your not wasting energy using a standard water colour. I mean it would be cheeper, it is in a higher grade plastic, so most likely less estrogen leachage. I would think that is a better way to go.
There's a huge difference between:
(a) bottles of water and jugs of water
and also,
(b) countries with distilleries (or factories) and countries w/o.
(a) if you need to buy water, then buy in bulk, like Arrowhead in those HUGE jugs and get your water that way.
Also, back to basics, boiling water isn't so bad... though you'd have to commit some time to process
(b) Foreign countries don't always have the luxuries of getting water delivered. Boiling works. I'd love to help a company create small scale water fountains (companies that would sell water to locals). I read about one in the newspaper...