Water: Buying a Message on a Bottle
(Page 2 of 2)
Nov. 14, 2008
By Wendy Williams, Prairie Writers Circle
That message finally seems to be getting through. Today I see the beginnings of a bottled-water backlash. At my gym, almost no one wants to be seen swigging from throw-away plastic anymore.
RELATED CONTENT
Some restaurants have abandoned bottled water. New York City’s Italian restaurant Del Posto, where it’s easy to drop hundreds of dollars on dinner for two, has a 61-page wine list with many bottles priced over $1,000, but you can’t buy bottled water at any price. Says one of the restaurant’s owners: “To spend fossil fuel trucking water around the world is absurd.”
At colleges nationwide, students take the “no bottled water” pledge. Realizing that spending taxpayer funds on bottled water is careless environmental stewardship, Illinois has canceled contracts for bottled water. The city governments of Fayetteville, Ark., and Albuquerque, N.M., won’t buy the stuff. Chicago has a tax of 5 cents per bottle to cover disposal costs. Michigan may extend its 10-cent deposit on soft-drink bottles to bottled water.
For a while, bottled water had a good thing going. In 2006, the industry worldwide grew 7 percent in dollar sales. Some forecasters suggested 40 percent growth over the next five years.
But recently, those phenomenal growth rates have slowed worldwide.
“Bottled water sales have gone flat for the first time in 30 years, at both Coke and Pepsi,” says ad executive Erik Yaverbaum, founder of Tappening, which encourages people to drink tap water. “I think people are realizing they are wasting money buying water that’s the same as what comes from their tap.”
If I’m going to the gym now, I drink a glass of water before I go. If I’m going on a long car trip, I fill up a clean glass jug. My mom did that. And we never went thirsty.
Wendy Williams, who lives in Massachusetts, is co-author of "Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future
." She wrote this comment for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.
Page:
<< Previous 1 | 2 |
