Corporate Bottled Water Takes the Greenwash to Twitter
June 11, 2009 · Print This Article
“Bottled water is the greenest, healthiest drink on the shelf!” repeats @BottledH20Babe on Twitter over and over and over again. Is she a bot? No, but she is a lame greenwashing tool of the bottled water industry.
Why would someone like this, whose sole purpose is to make inane claims about the earth friendliness of bottled water and argue with anyone who believes differently, be on Twitter in the first place?
Simple. The International Bottled Water Association is getting scared. People around the world are wising up to the fact that bottled water is wasteful and bad for the environment. The bottled water industry has gotten accustomed to making mind-boggling profits, and a movement to reduce bottled water consumption is a threat to their bank balance.
BottledH20Babe, whose Twitter profile links directly to the International Bottled Water Association website, has a single retort to those who tell ‘her’ why drinking water is bad: “It’s better than soda.” Truly deep and thought-provoking. It makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of bottled water right now.
The association’s website, Bottled Water Matters, actually has a petition (!) asking people to tell elected officials that “I, the undersigned, drink bottled water and understand that it is a safe, healthy, high-quality beverage choice. Bottled water is a modern-day choice because of its convenience and good taste.”
Wow, corporate bottled water spooks. You’re really killing us with your breathtaking logic. Luckily the Union of Concerned Scientists has a quick summary of reasons bottled water ISN’T green, and it actually makes sense.
Fossil fuel consumption. Approximately 17 million barrels of oil—enough to run 1 million cars for a whole year—are used to make plastic water bottles, according to the Pacific Institute. The burning of oil and other fossil fuels (which are also used to generate the energy that powers the manufacturing process) emits global warming pollution into the atmosphere.
Water consumption. The growth in bottled water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers. In addition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.
Waste. Only about 10 percent of water bottles are recycled, leaving the rest in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose.
Bottled water is not and never will be green. We don’t need lighter plastics – we need people to wake up to the simple fact that what’s in those disposable bottles is, in many cases, exactly the same as what comes out of their tap.
Link [Bottled Water Dumbassery] + [Union of Concerned Scientists]
- Reduce water bottle pollution-expand state bottle bills
- Stop The U.S. Gov't from harming our planet through their use of plastic water bottles!
- "Count the Plastic Water Bottles" Draw
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Far from being “scared,” the folks who populate the bottled water companies I represent are PROUD of their safe, healthy and convenient products which keep busy people, young and old, well hydrated. We’re delighted some our customers have taken to Twitter to speak up for healthy beverages. BTW, if oil use is measured over an entire year, our entire industry uses 8 “hours” of oil per year to deliver one of the healthiest beverages a person can drink. Since every product has a package, we make no apologies for providing it to appreciative customers. Or communicating on the web. You did forget an important detail: bottled water uses only 1/80 of 1% of municipal water in our products. And our recycling rate is 24%, not 10%, but we’re working hard to improve that figure. The trick is to recycle everything.
Thanks for barbed remarks. We’re always looking for useful feedback. If we were NOT expanding our circle of communications via Twitter and Facebook, you never would have written this.
To the writer: Have you taken the time to do the math on all the other products and “things” that contribute to global warming? What you’re going to find is that bottled water is simply a drop in the proverbial bucket when it comes to damage to the environment.
I know it’s “in” to trash-talk bottled water these days and it’s fun to make a statement about saving the environment. But making those statements or actually banning bottled water does nothing to save the environment. You have to look at the big picture, and not attack something that, in many cases, is a necessity.
Tom, you make no apologies for trashing the planet, I hope there is a special circle in Hell for you.
The entire process of manufacturing, storing, shipping, disposing, and recycling plastic is a HUGE negative impact to the planet as a whole. No measure of disposable plastic water bottles can really be considered “green”.
The marketing ploy here is what I like to call “gullibly green”: convincing – no, tricking – customers into believing that the act of purchasing THESE bottles by the buttload is waaaay better than before. To hell with the stainless steel reusables that have been stealing the spotlight from the bottled water industry over recent months from companies like Sigg and Klean Kanteen. Buy THESE bottles, over and over again, and don’t worry about how much you throw away because hey it’s less plastic.
Do yourself, your health, and your planet a favor. Get yourself a Sigg bottle, or any brand of reusable, poison-free bottle to carry your water around, and leave these bottles alone.