Down With Bottled Water
Posted on April 27, 2009 by
Here’s an earth-shattering revelation for you: This recession is bad. Bad, bad, bad. People left and right are unemployed, some are losing their houses, and I don’t even want to think about the hit my IRA has taken. But there’s a silver lining to every cloud, and here’s one for you: Since we’ve been in this recession, people are buying much less bottled water.
I never understood the bottled water fad myself, and the environmental cost of the bottles is not the only reason. To me, bottled water tastes like plastic. And I don’t enjoy drinking plastic. My beloved aluminum Sigg bottle comes with me everywhere I go, and I fill it with tap water that’s been run through my Brita filter. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and no waste is involved except for the filter.
The bottled water market is down 1 percent, and it may not be just because of the recession. It’s possible that people have considered the fact that plastic bottles are not eco-friendly and have – wait for it – stopped buying them. Though it may not often seem like it, when you see SUV after SUV on the roads and all the overpackaged items in stores, being green is catching on. Let’s hope it’s not a fad.
In the bottled water case, it’s my opinion that the key to keeping plastic bottles from making a comeback lies in marketing. Nalgene and Sigg and even Brita should be focusing their marketing and advertising efforts on the green angle – as with many environmental matters, sometimes just bringing something to people’s attention is all it takes. If these companies start pushing themselves as an alternative to wasteful bottles, perhaps reusable bottles will become the norm.
How do you think this trend can continue? How can we promote the use of reusable bottles?
As much as I would like to think that people will buy green right now, I really do think it’s a money issue. If I were Brita right now, I’d buy ad time telling people how much money you can save having a reusable bottle.
Oprah’s on the environmental issue now, though, so maybe the trend will continue. If she can sell books, I’m sure she can sell green.
I love my Sigg bottle and for me, continuing the trend is as simple as having a pretty bottle to carry. My Sigg is black with Japanese inspired pink flowers curling up the side. I love the bottle which encourages me to use it more and drinking more water is, in general, a great thing.
It’s an interesting question for sure. I live in the desert southwest where we’re painfully aware of our diminishing and rapidly disappearing water supply. My husband started joking about 3 years ago that “we’re going to have to make a choice between water and garbage” and unfortunately, I don’t think it’s much of a joke anymore!
Here, where water is scarce, reusable does reduce waste but it increases water use. Granted, that reusable water bottle is pretty small and a relatively minor thing and thus, doesn’t use much water in cleaning however, the question raised is an interesting one for us here in the desert anyway! Which is beter: something that reduces waste but uses more water or something that uses less water but increases waste?
Now there are probably all kinds of equations we could do showing how much water goes into plastics production but hey, I’m kinda lazy when it comes to math and I haven’t gotten to it yet! So though it’s an interesting question (which I realize I’ve said like 3 times now) I think I’ll still keep using my Sigg bottle because it makes me feel better than throwing that plastic bottle away every time I need a drink!
I have written a speech called Kill Bottled Water that I gave recently. Bottled water is silly is the underlying message.
I made a video for a scholarship about bottled water vs. tap water. It didn’t win (I was a finalist, though!), but it was fun to make, and I’m always looking for ways to get the word out about all the things wrong with bottled water. You can check out my video, if you’re interested: http://poorerthanyou.com/2008/04/18/you-paid-960-a-gallon-for-what/
The Modern Ex used to go through like three bottles of water a day before I bought him a Sigg bottle. Waste aside, I don’t know why anyone spends their money on something that can be free.
Brita filter water tastes so much better than most bottled water. And since Fake Plastic Fish and her gang got Brita to start taking back their filters for recycling, it really does seem like the best option.
Have you ever heard comedian Jim Gaffigan’s take on bottled water?…
“I feel kind of silly buying the bottled water, maybe I’m just too Midwestern. Every time I go into a store, I’m always like, ‘Hey, how you doin’? Yeah, I know you can get water free from any faucet, but uh, I want to pay for it. I’m just curious, do you have any air back there? Can I buy your garbage?’
“How did we get to the point where we’re paying for bottled water? That must have been some weird marketing meeting over in France. Some French guy’s sitting there, like “How dumb do I think the Americans are? I bet you we could sell those idiots water.” “Look, Pierre, the Americans are pretty dumb, but they’re not going to buy water.” “Oh yes they are! Let’s just tell the Americans the water’s from France.”
Hilarious!
I’m all for tap water. Tap water is regulated by the FDA and it has fluoride in it! After reading about how bottled water isn’t regulated (and it seems silly to buy something you can get for free), I stopped buying it.
As for bottles in general – I think it would be nice to see a shift away from even buying bottled soda.
Funny that there was little mention in any of the posts about taste. My wife swore by the delicious, cool, crisp taste of the bottled water that she drank and turned her nose up at the filtered water (swill, as she called it) that I drink through the Pur filter that’s attached to our kitchen sink. There’s a fun, light-hearted, ongoing debate in our house about water. Well… there was anyway
I challenged her to a taste test. She agreed. I set out six glasses of water: two of unfiltered tap water, two of her bottled water, and two of water filtered through the Pur filter. She knew the unfiltered waters because of the taste of chlorine. She could not tell the difference between the other four. I took the test next with the same results. we drink a lot more water out of glasses now — what a novel idea! Glasses!
Now… I do like the flavored bottled water so I can’t say I’m a non-bottled water drinker. I recycle 100% of the bottles so at least I’m limiting my envoronmental impact.