Corporate Responsibility | November 01, 2007 |
Cutting Plastic From the Plastic Bottle
Cities across the country have taken action against bottled water. Chicago has proposed a 10-cent tax to bottled water, and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake City have asked city employees to stop using bottled water or have banned it from city spending. They realized that the use of plastic and the shipping required to transport the water just isn't worth the negative environmental side effects.
So it's no wonder that Nestle Waters company, which produces Poland Spring and Arrowhead brands of water, has announced a new "Eco-Shape" bottle that uses up to 30 percent less plastic than the average half-liter plastic water bottle.
Perhaps cities will be more forgiving to a company that makes such changes and uses less plastic. In addition to the greener bottle, Poland Spring also boasts that 91 percent of materials from its bottling plants in Maine are recycled, and it runs its water tanker fleet on biodiesel fuel.
Whether these efforts help them warm up to environmentally conscious consumers or not, this technology is better for the environment and it is exactly what manufacturers should be doing. If other beverage companies adopt the new bottles, it could drastically lessen our plastic consumption by cutting almost a third of the plastic required for the bottled beverage industry.
Reddit
Digg
Stumble
ShareThis
Comments By Readers
While I'm certainly not against the bottled water companies using less plastic in their bottles, the issue is much bigger than this small fix.
Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle spend massive amounts of money to convince consumers that bottled water is more healthful than tap, when in most cases these companies are simply selling filtered tap water back to us at a premium. The plastic and energy used to bottle the water and the energy used to ship it are a total waste of resources when in most areas in the United States we have clean, cheap water flowing from our own taps.
In fact, while tap water is strongly regulated by the EPA, bottled water is held to much less strict standards by the FDA.
Personally, I carry a Stainless Steel Klean Kanteen bottle that I fill at my kitchen sink and then wherever I happen to be. The cost of water filter cartridges, in dollars as well as resources consumed, is much lower than buying bottled water.
For more information on the campaign against bottled water, as well as more information about reducing our plastic waste in general, please visit my web site:
<a href="http://www.fakeplasticfish.com</a>http://www.fakeplasticfish.com</a>.
Post Your Comment