Demand for Bottled Water Evaporating
As concerns mount over bottled water's impacts on the environment and human health, bottled water sales are beginning to dry up. In America, Nielsen reports that bottled water sales fell 3.3% in the US last year.
Evian reported that its 2008 profits shrank 69% in part because of declining sales of bottled water in France, Spain, Britain and Japan. Sales of bottled water in France fell by 7.5% last year.
Switzerland-based Nestlé, the world's biggest bottled water manufacturer, including the brands Perrier and San Pellegrino, reported that sales of its water declined by 4.1% in the first three months of 2009, with a particularly startling 9% drop in the British market last year.
Bottled Water Viewed as Trashy
Increasingly around the world, plastic water bottles have been identified and targeted as a major source of pollution.
Venice, Italy is promoting city tap water as a means of reducing the plastic bottle trash that has plagued its canals and other historic sites. To advertise the tap water, the city branded it "Acqua Veritas" and distributed to city residents free carafes bearing a stylized logo. Venetian officials consider the program a great success: a reduction of plastic trash by 27 tons a year.
Most recently, Bundanoon, Australia, a rural town about 75 miles southwest of Sydney, became the first community in the world to outlaw the selling of bottled water, as it seeks to reduce the use of plastic and protect the environment. Stores will sell reusable bottles to be filled from filtered water fountains in the town, instead of commercially bottled water being trucked into the town.
Government Budgets for Bottled Water Tapped
Furthermore, in a time of worldwide economic stagnation, governments are under increasing pressure to stop spending tax dollars on expensive and unnecessary bottled water. Last year, the majority of about 250 mayors who attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors voted to phase out government use of bottled water. San Francisco canceled its city spending on bottled water in 2007, saving nearly $500,000 annually. Seattle, which stopped buying bottled water last year, is saving up to $57,000 annually.
Public vs. Corporate Rights to Water
Across America, communities are beginning to resist when companies seek to acquire new water sources and to pump more and more from the water sources the companies already own.
Enumclaw, Washington cited environmental concerns when it rejected Nestlé's bid for its water, and Nestlé was forced to drop attempts in two other Washington towns, Black Diamond and Orting, on "logistical grounds."
Nestlé's efforts in McCloud, California, near Mt. Shasta, have sparked a 6-year battle, with California's Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. stating: "It takes massive quantities of oil to produce plastic water bottles and to ship them in diesel trucks across the United States. Nestlé will face swift legal challenge if it does not evaluate the environmental impact of diverting millions of gallons of spring water from the McCloud River into billions of plastic water bottles." A resident of McCloud added, "how can water, which supposedly is held in trust by the state for the people, be sold to a foreign corporation, or any corporation, without a vote by the people? We soon learned that Nestlé is preying on other small towns around the country."
Restaurants Go for Tap Water
Even some restaurants have given up the lucrative sale of bottled water for which they have traditionally charged an even higher price than consumers pay at the market. At New York City's Del Posto, diners won't find Perrier or San Pellegrino water on the menu.
The Italian restaurant, backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich, is one of several shunning bottled water. "The argument for local water is compelling and obvious," said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, which stretches to Los Angeles. "It's about transportation, packaging, the absurdity of moving water all over the world," he said. At Alice Water's famed epicurean temple Chez Panisse, bottled water has been off the menu for the past three years for the same reasons. Customers who prefer their water bubbly receive tap water that has been lightly carbonated with the restaurant's own carbonator.
The city of Vancouver, British Columbia has asked restaurants to add tap water to the top of their beverage menus as part of that city's campaign to reduce bottled water sales 20 percent by 2010. The city's tap water campaign is part of a larger effort, called the Zero Waste Challenge, to reduce waste and to divert 70 percent of the regional district's solid waste from landfills by 2015. "Bottled Water is the equivalent of a pet rock: It's totally unnecessary and expensive," says Tim Stevenson, chairman of Metro Vancouver's water committee.
And for World Water Week, many restaurants across America encourage citizens to forgo bottled water for the UNICEF-sponsored "TAP Project." In a program that began in 2007, customers are encouraged to contribute $1 for the tap water they normally receive for free in order to help fund access to sanitary tap water for children around the world.
Congressional Inquiry Launched into Bottled Water Safety
Natural Resources Defense Council's seminal 1999 report on bottled water disclosed both bacterial and chemical contamination in bottled water and concluded that bottled water is often simply bottled municipal water and sometimes less safe than tap water.
Over 10 years after the NRDC findings were made public, this month the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that prompted House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to direct letters to 13 bottlers asking for information regarding testing, water sources and treatment processes. Rep. Stupak observed that "neither the public nor federal regulators know nearly enough about where bottled water comes from and what safeguards are in place to ensure its safety."
Bottles vs. Tap: The Battle is Just Beginning
The companies that sell bottled water are not giving up without a fight.
"We've seen a slowdown," said Brian J. Flaherty, director of public affairs for Nestlé Waters North America, whose brands include Poland Spring, Deer Park and Perrier. "The economy is forcing a lot of companies and our customers to trim back and make some decisions," Flaherty said. Flaherty, who maintains that bottled water is not in competition with tap, said the company is willing to work with its customers. For example, Nestlé can install water filtration systems that are hooked up to the public water supply.
Determined to change the negative perceptions about the plastics industry created by its critics and opponents, the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) is preparing to launch a social media-based Internet campaign over 4 years, and at a cost of at least $10 million, aimed at the 60 million people in the millennial generation (i.e., those born between 1982 and 2001).
The industry is at a tipping point because of the visible waste stream associated with plastics and single-use disposal litter, admits Bill Carteaux, president and CEO of SPI.
Individual companies are spending millions on sophisticated advertisements that naturally avoid any negative associations with their product. For instance, Evian's current television ad, which is now an Internet sensation, uses computer-generated effects to feature adorable babies on old-fashioned roller skates, dancing to retro music, that takes us back to a time of innocence, long before the impacts of plastic bottles were apparent - when the economy was booming like the boom box featured in the ad.
But consumers beware: Evian spelled backwards is NAÏVE.
Watch the Evian ad below:
Robin Madel: World Water Week and Urban Water Infrastructure
Find out more at:
www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org
www.stopcorporateabuse.org
They do some awesome work!
Anyone looking to support the use of public water over bottled water, check out www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org or www.stopcorporateabuse.org - they're doing some awesome work! They're the organization that presented to the Conference of Mayors.
It's utterly absurd that at a time where states are in huge amounts of debt they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on bottled water... what an easy way to cut spending!
Consider bottled water uses LESS water than any other packaged drink, uses LESS plastic in its bottles, and contains NO calories at a time when obesity is alarmingly high.
Our company prints the water source on its labels and/or on-line, and posts detailed quality reports. People interested in learning more can visit www.nestle-watersna.com.
Bottled water is often the only choice for clean, safe drinking water, especially in disasters. Tap water is generally safe, but quality can be questionable. In 2005, the Environmental Working Group found 260 contaminants in U.S. public water supplies. The CDC estimates that 4 to 33 million Americans get sick each year from intestinal illnesses caused by tap water. The American Society of Civil Engineers downgraded America’s tap water from a D in 2003 to a D- in 2009.
And filters can’t solve all of these issues. They’re unable to remove all contaminants, lose their effectiveness if not properly maintained and have their own recyclability challenges.
If bottled water didn’t exist, we’d still need to fix recycling (plastic bottles are less than 1% of the U.S. waste stream), address our nation’s health (more than half of people would drink sweetened beverages without bottled water) and improve the public water system.
So, let’s keep our options open.
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute,
Jane Lazgin
With all due respect, Jane, the answer to unsafe drinking water is to improve the public system, not to drain the springs and charge the people whose water you took $1.30 for a 20oz.
Bottled water will always be available in case of disaster or temporary need- they sell it in gallon jugs at the grocery store. We don't need Nestle, Coke, or Pepsi involved trying to further expand their empires by convincing everyone that they need to carry bottled water 24/7.
Reusable water bottles filled with filtered tap water is the way to go-- environmentally, health-wise, and financially.
You discuss 'Choice". That's an oxymoron for companies like Nestle.
There is no choice when your marketing division spends millions on campaign ads to brainwash people to believe that they need bottled water because tap water is supposedly unsafe. I just read that your industry will spend many 10's of millions in marketing bottled water to the pre-teen and teen age groups. Another brainwashing and malicious attempt to persuade this demographic that they need bottled water.
I remember in the 70's and 80's that there was life before bottled water and the world was just fine. Then in the late 80's and throughout the 90's there was the surge in propaganda in promotion of bottled water because of 'safety'. Your industry through slick marketing and planting of news stories, instilled a fear in the public, depicting tap water as unsafe, and that the better so -called choice is bottled water.
Well, I have news for you Jane. Your opinions are not fooling anyone. Of course you have to state your lies. You work for a beverage company and it's your job. I knew many people that worked at another beverage company and they knew they were working for a company that sells carbonated, corn syrup, GMO poison to children, but it was their job and they had no conscious for the welfare of people in general.
(continued below)
That suggests that people are cutting back on purchasing drinks in general, possibly because of the economy. If that's the case, when the economy picks up again, then we can reasonably expect sales of soda and water to pick up along with it.
Access to clean water is one of the most basic human necessities, yet 2.5 billion people have no access to improved sanitation facilities and 900 million people lack access to clean drinking water. If only people who can afford to pay for water in bottles get to drink clean healthy water, this is very unjust for the world's poorest citizens. Globally, an estimated $100 billion US are spent every year on bottled water. Yet it would only take $30 billion to halve the number of people who do not have ready access to clean, safe, drinking water, and achieve one of the Millennium Development Goals established by the UN in 2000.
You can find links to citations for all these statistics on my blog post, http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lmonroe/advances_in_the_plastic_bottle.html.
~Leila
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AaCk3gKGmk
I think a much better approach to this problem is to clean up our water supplies. Get the fluoride and other contaminants out of our public drinking water. I use filters at home and try and bring my own water almost everywhere I go but that water usually runs out so that leaves me with just a few options. Those are: 1. carry around a filter and fill up at any faucet or water fountain I can find. 2. Drink water I know is contaminated out of a faucet or public water fountain. 3. Purchase a non-water drink which will either be in plastic or aluminum. 4. Purchase water that is in plastic. None of these are ideal.
I say leave bottled water alone. Let's instead work on cleaning up the water supplies and use a more biodegradable container for water or pop instead of plastic.
BTW, a biodegradable container still requires extraction of materials and manufacture and delivery. Lots of embodied energy.
Now we just need to start recycling used water filters!
that has been driving me mad too.
Stop buying plastic bottles, and buy better cars!!!
One of the problems with tap water is that if it comes through older lines it can pick up lead from the soldering.
Virtually all the water I drink is in the form of soda pop with artificial sweetener. But I use bottled spring water to make coffee.
... And just plain old correct too.
"One of the problems with tap water is that if it comes through older lines it can pick up lead from the soldering."
... Which any filter will fix.
"Virtually all the water I drink is in the form of soda pop with artificial sweetener."
... Yikes.