What to choose when you must buy bottled water
As I've mentioned in a previous post, bottled water is bad for the environment – the better choice is to drink tap water (filtered, if necessary) and pack your own bottle when you're on the go. But sometimes situations come up when you don't have much of a choice, and at those times, it's good to remember that not all bottled waters are created equal: some companies are making decisions that they can be proud of.
One such company is Fiji Water, which has become a presence in many retailers with its simple and distinctive square bottles. (I first tried it in the airport in Fiji almost a decade ago, and kept the bottle around the house for years to water plants.) Your first instinct may be that it's ridiculous to buy water from so far away when we have plenty of water to drink in our own country, but Fiji Water has a set of eco-friendly policies that likely make its carbon footprint lower than some of the local options.
For instance, says Thomas Mooney, senior vice president for marketing and sustainable growth at Fiji Water, the company has been carbon-negative since January 1st of this year – the first bottled-water company in the world to do so, Mooney says. They have also made a commitment to reduce their total greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2010, taking into account the entire product lifecycle, from creating the packaging to bottling to shipping. One of the interesting things they found while doing their research, Mooney says, is that shipping wasn't the number-one or even the number-two source of the company's emissions: the top culprits were creating and disposing of the bottles. One thing that surprised them, says Mooney, was the impact low end-user recycling rates had on the company's total carbon footprint. "Recycling a Fiji Water bottle so that that material can be reused wipes out one-third of the overall emissions associated with the product's manufacture and transport," he says. To that end, one of their major goals is a public awareness campaign to increase recycling rates in the United States.
The bottom line? When you're looking for a drink, the greenest choice is tap water. But if you're stuck and thirsty, Fiji Water may just be the most eco-friendly pick in the cooler, over other water brands and also over other bottled beverages.
For more on Fiji's green initiatives, visit fijigreen.com.
What do you think? What other bottled beverage companies do you know of that are making an effort to do better?
Read more:
• Choosing eco-friendly beer, wine and spirits
• Making greener choices in the kitchen
• What you can do about rising food prices
June 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Negative carbon emissions? This terminology always confuses me. If I drive my car, it emits carbon. If I walk to work the next day, the carbon from the previous day is not negated...it's still been emitted. And while transporting the Fiji bottle may produce fewer emissions than the actual production of the bottle, that doesn't mean the amount from transportation is low; it just means it is lower. We all have to stop and think about what is being said, and what the most sensible solution is.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:35 pm
There have been many studies in more recent times to show that most of the bottled water is no better for you than tap water, and often doesn't taste any better either. However, that doesn't mean that tap water is good for you. In fact, it is nowhere near what your body actually needs. If we are serious about our health, then we should be eliminating chlorines, and all other trace chemicals and micro-organisms from our water. Let's face it, for most of our communities, some of the water coming through our pipes was once in someone's toilet!
If people want to make a difference in the "footprint", they should bottle their own water, and use better bottles to do it (such as stainless steel that can be used for very great lengths of time). Most of the plastic bottles can be refilled many times if you are using purified water. This, in itself, will reduce the number of bottles going to landfill.
Fundamentally, though, why are Canadians paying other people to bottle our water? We do it ourselves in our family. (By the way, reverse osmosis systems, though they are excellent for quality, waste water in the effort to filter your water; so this isn't very environmentally sound.) You can e-mail me to learn how we do it; I don't want to advertise here. boltons@rogers.com