Yes Men Give Dasani a Truthful Makeover

If more customers knew that Dasani water was simply municipal tap water – the same exact stuff that comes out of their own faucets at home – would they pay a premium for it? Probably not, as notorious eco-pranksters The Yes Men found out during a recent trip to Boston.

The Yes Men and “Coca-Cola spokespeople” unveiled a new, more truthful name and label for Dassani bottled water at a park and then spoke to people about whether they would buy it.

Check it out:

From The Phoenix:

The mock press conference, part of Boston-based Corporate Accountability International’s (CIA) Think Outside the Bottle campaign, protested Coca-Cola’s refusal to state Dasani’s origin — public water sources — on its labels, as Pepsi and Nestlé have done with their bottled-water brands.

“This is a classic case of deception,” said Mike Bonanno (a/k/a Igor Vamos), in town that day with main cohort Andy Bichlbaum (né Jacques Servin) for the opening of The Yes Men Fix the World at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. “They don’t want people to know that they’re drinking tap water because it’s pure profit. Basically, they’ve figured out such a great scam that they don’t want it to end.”

Check out the rest of their eco-pranks at TheYesMen.org.

Link [The Phoenix]

Mother Jones Unveils the Greenwashed Truth about Fiji Water

On their website, Fiji Water brags, “Our rainfall is purified by equatorial winds after traveling thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.  Winds that carry acid rain and pollutants to other parts of the planet just don’t come our way.”

What they don’t mention are the environmental impacts Fiji Water creates by shipping their pricey product all the way around the world – or the fact that Fiji citizens still don’t have easy access to the clean, fresh water that is bottled and sold around the world. In fact, if Fijians want to drink to drink clean water, they have to buy bottled Fiji Water in stores for almost the same price that Americans pay.

Fiji has branded itself as “green bottled water”, and that irony seems to be lost on the kind of people who should be fighting such greenwashing. Fiji Water’s co-owner, Lynda Resnick, is a liberal donor who proudly touts her friendship with people like Laurie David and Arianna Huffington. Tens of thousands of bottles were handed out at the 2008 Democratic Convention, and Al Gore himself drank it during a discussion about climate change in 2006.

It’s true that Fiji Water is remarkably transparent about their carbon footprint – it’s right there on their website, and you won’t get that from any other bottler. But efforts to cut back on the amount of plastic used in bottles and donations to environmental causes don’t cancel out the fact that this company is shipping water across the globe in plastic bottles.

From Mother Jones:

The offsetting effort has been the centerpiece of Fiji Water’s $5 million “Fiji Green” marketing blitz, which brazenly urges consumers to drink imported water to fight climate change.

Selling long-distance water to green consumers may be a contradiction in terms. But that hasn’t stopped Fiji from positioning its product not just as an indulgence, but as an outright necessity for an elite that can appreciate its purity. As former Fiji Water CEO Doug Carlson once put it, “If you like Velveeta cheese, processed water is okay for you.”

And the sad thing is, people buy that message – to the tune of millions and millions of dollars a year.

Read Mother Jones’ full account of Fiji Water’s environmental and social impacts, and check out this June 2008 New York Times article as well.

Link [Mother Jones] + [New York Times]

Timberland CEO Struggles with Company Ban on Bottled Water

Timberland CEO Jeffrey Swartz announced a new ban on bottled water at his company headquarters around the world two weeks ago, thinking it would be fairly easy to implement. After all, what’s so tough about using filtered tap water or other alternatives and passing on expensive deliveries of bottled water? As it turns out, according to Swartz – plenty.

He was psyched about implementing the new ban, until he started running into some obstacles:

First there’s a supply issue to contend with – our facilities team reports a 4-week supply of bottled water already in house and we don’t want to be wasteful, so can we continue to offer it until the supply runs out?  Sure, okay … makes sense.  Then the vending machine folks chime in, what about the plastic soda bottles in the vending machines?  Are we getting rid of those, too?  Wow.  Okay, sure.  No more plastic bottles in the vending machines.  But hold on, says the guy in charge of our dining services – we don’t have nearly enough glasses and cups to accommodate the increased demand from people who would otherwise be drinking bottled water.  We’re gonna have to add more dishwashers, or buy more glasses … yikes.  All I wanted to do was get rid of the bottled water, now I’m buying new dishwashers?  How come it’s never as easy as you think it will be to get something done?

Apparently Swartz also received feedback from readers of the Earthkeepers blog about whether banning bottled water was even necessary in the first place, with people arguing that bottled water has its place and that getting rid of it wasn’t going to negate Timberland’s carbon footprint.

Swartz understands that – but, as he says on Earthkeepers, “I hold on to the notion that in the corporate world, where tap water is clean and reuseable containers are (soon to be) plentiful, we can do better than bottled water.”

That’s a great attitude to have, and we applaud Swartz and Timberland for going through the trouble to address these kinds of issues in the workplace. Their next step? Getting rid of paper products.

Link [Earthkeepers] via [GreenBiz.com]

Corporate Bottled Water Takes the Greenwash to Twitter

“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]

Earth Day Fail: Coca-Cola Promotes Bottled Water

Is it just us, or do big corporations just not get what it means to be green? Recently, Pepsi attempted to convince us that bottled water could be green with their new ‘Ecofina’ bottle, which is made with 50 percent less plastic but is still WATER IN PLASTIC BOTTLES. Now, Coca-Cola apparently chose Earth Day to promote their bottled water, Dasani.

From Eco Office Gals:

As I went through my email yesterday morning, I saw one from My Coke Rewards that really disappointed me.  For anyone that doesn’t know My Coke Rewards are points you can collect from entering codes on the inside of the bottle caps and cases of Coca Cola Products.

So, let me just share this email with you first:

“Earth Day is a great time to celebrate the many wonders of the world—like cool, crisp refreshing water. In honor of Mother Nature, you can earn Double Points with DASANI.

April 20th through the 30th, enjoy any 12-pack of DASANI*—then enter your codes to boost your balance with Double Points—it’s a great way to enjoy Earth Day.”

Basically, they are encouraging people to buy plastic bottle for Earth Day, and get rewarded for it!

Plastic bottles, in honor of Mother Nature. Wow, how amazingly green of you, Coca-Cola. Way to celebrate Earth Day, indeed. Because what the earth really needs is more cool, crisp, refreshing, overpriced tap water in plastic bottles that will end up in landfills and in waterways.

Read more about the gulf between Coca-Cola’s green marketing and their actions in this press release by Corporate Accountability International.

Link [Eco Office Gals]

Greenwash Alert! Pepsi’s ‘Eco-Fina’ Bottle

We got an interesting press release in our inbox this week announcing a supposedly eco-friendly bottled water.  PepsiCo has launched its new ‘Eco-Fina’ bottle, which uses 50 percent less plastic than regular water bottles, making it the lightest half-liter bottle of any nationally distributed bottled water on the market – and they want anyone with environmentally conscious tendencies to know about it. But is it really green?

From the press release:

At a weight of 10.9 grams, the Eco-Fina Bottle is made with 50 percent less plastic, eliminating an estimated 75 million pounds of plastic annually.  Aquafina is also driving additional environmental benefits by producing the bottle at purification centers where filling occurs and by eliminating cardboard base pads from 24-packs, which will contribute to saving 20 million pounds of corrugate by 2010.

The new bottle features an eye-catching “rippled web” design that goes beyond aesthetics, ensuring its structural soundness and functionality.  The Eco-Fina Bottle will be available in 24-packs and begins shipping to retail outlets nationwide this April.

IT’S A PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE. It’s not green. No, not at all – and what’s especially annoying about this sort of thing is the fact that millions of gullible customers will feel better about their bottled water habits when they buy this crap – “Oh, look, it’s ‘ECO’. I can keep buying bottled water without guilt!”

Plastic is a problem – only a small fraction of bottles actually end up getting recycled, they’re made using petroleum and there are absolutely no benefits to drinking water shipped from halfway across the country (or even the world, in some cases) as opposed to filtered tap water.  But bottled water is a huge revenue source for companies like PepsiCo, and of course they’re going to try to hang on to your money with all their might – hence greenwashing efforts like this one.

Link [Eco-Fina]

Is Bottled Water Really So Bad?

I can’t tell you how many self-described environmentalists I know that have refrigerators full of bottled water. Not just gallon jugs, either, but giant Costco-sized packs of individual bottles. Now, we’ve all got our eco-sins – nobody’s perfect. And many of these bottled water-loving greenies assert that there are far worse habits they could have. Maybe that’s true, but bottled water and other beverages sold in individual plastic bottles certainly aren’t harmless.

Treehugger’s ‘Ask Pablo’ tackles the question, ‘Is bottled water really so bad?’

Surely there are bigger culprits out there. The problem for bottled water is that it is so ubiquitous and generally an unnecessary luxury. With most of the Western world having access to clean municipal water supplies, and even additional filtration, there is little reason to grab a pre-packaged dose of hydration, except for the sake of convenience, portability, or emergency preparedness. But successful marketing campaigns have created an image of purity, wealth, and health around bottled water and it is this situation that has triggered the bottled water backlash.

While everyone is bashing bottled water the rest of the bottled beverage industry has remained relatively untouched. This is despite the fact that all other bottled beverages contain a higher level of embodied environmental impact because they have ingredients in addition to water and their packaging is oftentimes heavier, translating into higher shipping emissions. Most of these ingredients are agricultural products: corn sweeteners for sodas, grapes for wine, grains for beer, etc. and their supply chain involves petrochemical fertilizers, diesel trucks, and processing factories. So all of a sudden bottled water doesn’t seem quite as bad, or at least this is how the bottled water industry sees it. Their argument is often that they are shifting market share away from high-calorie soft drinks to a much healthier alternative. Unfortunately this still ignores the fact that consumers can get healthy (and much cheaper) water from their tap as well as portability and convenience from Bisphenol-A free, reusable, and durable, stainless steel containers.

Pablo offers several suggestions for those who like soft drinks or carbonated water – check them out over at Treehugger.

Getting a faucet-mounted water filter is such a good investment and will go a long way toward reducing the amount of waste you produce – especially now that Brita is taking back old filters. Plus, with all of the great reusable containers out there, there’s really no reason to continue adding to the ridiculously large pile of empty plastic bottles that piles up around the world every day.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: istock

Do You Really Need Fiji Water More Than Fijians Do?

Fiji water seems to have replaced Evian in the status-symbol category, becoming an accessory seen in the arms of the same type of people who constantly carry tiny dogs. You know, the Paris Hilton set. It’s marketed as a super-fresh, great-tasting bottled water that’s far superior to what comes out of your tap.  But, wake-up call: at least you have clean water coming out of your tap.  That’s more than Fijians have.

Yes, that’s right: as a money-hungry corporation (big surprise) drills into the artesian aquifer in this remote South Pacific island, bottles it up (with plastic bottles imported from China) and sends it across the world to areas where people already have clean water to drink, native Fijians have to make do with dirty, polluted water.

From willisays:

In looking for examples of good clean water programs, I came accross the Humanitarian Services division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Over the last 5 years, they’ve done clean water projects in 34 countries. More about that later.

Here’s where the two stories converge. One of those projects is in Fiji. The village Navunimono gets it’s water from a river polluted by cattle grazing, runoff and other stuff. Humanitarian Services helped the village construct 3 water tanks and now they have clean water.

I’m happy they have clean water now but the story points out problems around the world. What did the military dictator of Fiji do about the water problem? What about the American company taking clean water from another part of the island chain?

This is a great example of how entitled and self-absorbed much of the Western world has become – especially America.  We’re more than happy to consume away at the expense of other people.  Most of us are born into privilege compared to the citizens of third world countries, yet it’s never enough.  We have to tear basic human rights like clean water out of the hands of the less fortunate so that we can enjoy ridiculous excesses like imported water in plastic bottles.

Link [willisays]

‘Truth in Hydration’ Pushing Bottled NYC Tap Water

Bottled water aficionados were upset when we all learned the truth about where the Dasani and Aquafina brands of bottled water actually come from: the tap.  The public had been led to believe that bottled water was cleaner, purer, safer and better-tasting than tap water, so they felt duped.  Maybe that’s why bottled water company Tap’dNY is pushing their product through a blog called ‘Truth in Hydration’.  Tap’dNY is NYC tap water in a bottle, and the company is focusing on the idea of ‘honesty in marketing of water’.

From the Truth in Hydration blog:

Tap’dNY is a bottled water company with a local twist and a knack for honesty. We don’t travel the world from Fiji to France seeking water or offer the usual bottled water gimmicks. We work with NYC’s public water system to source the world’s best tasting tap water, purify it through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally, leaving out ludicrous transportation miles.

We offer an honest and local alternative to thirsty New Yorkers, giving them a smarter choice: to drink their own (award winning) water.

…local tap water? Is this a retreat in the war on bottled water, or a pragmatic solution to a problem that’s not going away (that is- people like the convenience of bottled water and are too lazy to carry around a Sigg)?  It’s difficult to predict whether a bottled-water-obsessed America will ever shift toward carrying reusable containers instead of buying and tossing so much plastic.

For New Yorkers, at least, Tap’dNY water doesn’t seem worth the price: they can get the same thing from any tap in town, for free.  And, many people across the US could benefit similarly by simply fitting their faucet with a filter and getting in the habit of bringing a container everywhere they go.  But, America is entranced with anything labeled ‘more convenient’, so bottled water might not be going anywhere.  In that case, at least Tap’dNY is being honest about where their water comes from, and bottling local water is certainly greener than importing it from across the globe.

Link [Truth in Hydration] via [Neatorama]

MLB Bans Bottled Water, Deems Gatorade the Only Acceptable Beverage

How ridiculous is this: Gatorade has been named the official drink of Major League Baseball, and that decree doesn’t just mean lots of advertising and lame mentions of the drink from sportscasters throughout games. It means that players can’t be seen drinking anything BUT Gatorade while in the dugout – not even a plain ol’ bottle of water.

From NJ.com:

Two signs on the doors leading from the visitors’ clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field to the first-base dugout read, “NO BOTTLED WATER ON THE BENCH.”

What’s this? Athletes can’t drink water? Even in the humid Chicago summers?

Here’s the explanation I got:

Gatorade is Major League Baseball’s “official sports drink.” So instructions were sent that no player could be seen drinking anything but Gatorade in the dugout. Not even Aquafina, which is the “official water” of MLB. Not even bottles of water with the labels removed.

Furthermore, it was noted that if players did take bottled water into the dugout, all bottled water would be removed from the clubhouse as punishment. Um, wow. Brilliant. So now, not only are athletes forced to drink gross sugary junk instead of what nature intended when they’re dehydrated during a game, young athletes will be getting the message that Gatorade is what you’re supposed to drink when you’re thirsty. What’s next, watering crops with Gatorade? Seems like we’re headed that way.

Gatorade: “It’s got electrolytes!”

Link [NJ.com]

Photo credit: Flickr user scragz

The Secret Culprit of Oil Consumption: Plastic Bags & Bottles

If you’re upset about the price of oil, your first instinct might be to point your finger at the usual suspects: the war, suburban housewives driving Hummers to the grocery store and oil companies that are taking the record profits and laughing all the way to the bank. While they’re definitely culpable, one thing you may not have thought of is your own contribution, even if you don’t own a car. Water bottles and plastic bags are a surprising culprit.

The Business Shrink has it:

The most reliable statistics from the Pacific Institute put America’s love affair with water bottles at 31.2 billion liters of water in 2006. Due to negative press on the possible health effects of the use, most people are aware water bottles are sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. In order to manufacture these bottles over 900,000 tons of plastic is needed. The mainstream manufacturing process that produces PET bottles requires a combination of natural gas and petroleum. The petroleum requirement is where the statistics show that America’s obsession could be hurting their wallets at the gas pump.

Bottom line, the production of 31.2 billion liters of water for the U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil.

America also uses an astounding 100 billion plastic bags per year, and it takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce them. When you add in worldwide consumption, we could save 120 million barrels of oil annually by switching to reusable bags.

Bottled water and all of these mountains of plastic bags are easy addictions to kick. Faucet-mounted filters, reusable bottles and reusable bags make it really easy to avoid consumption of so much petroleum. Honestly, what’s the problem here? Why do people have such a hard time making such a simple switch?

I’ve been carrying a set of cute little reusable bags to the grocery store for years now, and when I first started, the baggers would look at me like I was out of my mind and then acted like filling my bags instead of the plastic ones was some kind of insurmountable chore. Now they’re used to it though, and the more people start doing it, the more expected it will be.

Link [Business Shrink]

Photo credit: Flickr user klynslis