Mario Batalli as the new Superman? A couple of weeks a go I went to a very well known restaurant in NY, owned by super chef (and super man if you ask my husband) Mario Batalli, and I was absolutely surprised by the fact that they are only serving filtered tap water in glasses (of course etched with information about the harmful environmental impact caused by plastic bottles from bottled water).

Secretly, a little disappointed for the lack of choices, I decided to dig and learn a bit more of the current bottled water industry situation, from the perspective of producers, companies like yours and ours, environmentalists and even city mayors and here is a summary of the findings. I invite you to be the judge:

The facts

According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), 96% of bottled water is sold in single-size polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles, which, because they are frequently consumed “on the go,” end up in city trash cans rather than recycling bins.

CRI estimates some 4 billion PET bottles end up in the waste stream, costing cities some $70 million a year in cleanup and landfill costs.

The Food & Water Water Watch claims that more than 17 million barrels of oil (enough to fuel 1M cars for a year) are needed to produce the plastic water bottles sold in the US annually.

Furthermore, there is the environmental cost of manufacturing and then transporting the nearly 100 billion liters of bottled water each year. Stores are filled with bottled water from all over the country and even the world (please also consider the cost of fuel required to bring these bottles from Europe or even other parts of North America to our local stores)

Despite these facts, not so long ago bottled water was bubbling and have had swelled 59% to 5.1 billion by the end of 2008, reason why producers are currently seriously blaming not only the economic downturn but also the (according to them) misguided and confusing criticism of activist groups and a handful of mayors that have presented misinformation and subjective criticism as facts[1].

The IBWA’s argument is that Instead of pitting bottled water against tap water, bottled water should be seen as an alternative to soda and other sugary drinks consumed outside the home. In the consulted ad the association quotes statistics saying that in the USA70% of beverages are consumed from a can or bottle, “a result of our 24/7 on-the-go society, so actually ideally the drink in everyone’s purse, backpack, and lunch box should be water.

As for recycling, the IBWA declare that bottled water companies have done their part to reduce the amount of PET resin in bottles by 40 percent over the last five years. Despite the number of bottles that end up in landfills, however, PET bottles represent only a third of 1 percent (.0033) of all trash.

How is America reacting to this?

Without doubt now more than ever governments, activists, and the media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their activities. Myriad organizations rank companies on the performance of their corporate social responsibility (CSR), and, despite sometimes questionable methodologies, these rankings attract considerable publicity. As a result, CSR has emerged as an inescapable priority for business leaders in every country and of course the “no consumption” of bottled water constitutes an “easy” and quick step towards this big goal.

To complicate the situation even more for the bottled water producers, many influential cities and mayors in the US (who probably have the most to gain from promoting municipal water) have been getting into the act and are even issuing executive orders to cancel the city’s purchasing contracts for bottled water, mandating instead that cities departments rely on tap water.

Our opinion

We are proud to be a forward-thinking and environmentally responsible business, so we’ll have to go with Mario’s approach, we actually suggest that you stop for a moment and consider that bottled water regulations only require the water to be as safe as tap water, meaning that the idea of paying for water to be bottled and then flown or shipped thousands of miles begins to appear quite absurd, and a very poor use of our natural resources.

What do you think?

 

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[1] As claimed in the New York Times ad published on August 2009 by the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA)