By 
ED Note: This is the original “Ask Pablo” column which set off enormous hullabaloo about the “cost” of bottled water. This post was picked up by media organizations far and wide and even by the Fiji water company themselves, who have since taken some interesting steps. Please read it with that historical context in mind!
+++
This week’s AskPablo comes from Maryline: “I am interested to know the ‘true-cost’ of a bottle of Fiji water that currently sells for $1.50 in the United States. David Lazarus wrote a report on the water business in the SF Chronicle and studied the success of Fiji (January 21 edition), where ‘distance and exoticism are marketed as advantages.’ Fiji is now # 2 in premium bottled water, behind Evian where we have the same transportation issue. An environmental absurdity!”
Please note: Due to overwhelming reader interest in this topic some of the assumptions made in this column have been adjusted. Numerous readers were kind enough to provide more accurate values for some of my previous assumptions.
I agree! I once heard Julia “Butterfly” Hill (everyone’s favorite tree-sitting sweetheart) say that it pollutes several times more water to make the plastic bottle than it actually holds. We might as well put that myth to the test while we’re at it. Where do we begin? Well, I doubt that Fiji has a booming plastics industry so they probably get the bottles in the form of “Blanks” from China, which are then expanded to their final size and shaped by a process called “stretch blow molding.” The total mass of the empty 1 liter bottle is probably around 0.025kg (25g) and it is made from PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) Plastics of this type use around 6.45kg of oil per kg, 294.2kg of water per kg, and result in 3.723kg of greenhouse gas emissions per kg. So, with a quick check (200kg/kg x 0.025kg = 5kg of water) we find that Butterfly is indeed correct. Based on my calculations a bottle that holds 1 liter requires 5 liters of water in its manufacturing process (this includes power plant cooling water).
Let’s take a look at the transportation aspect to see what the total ecological impact of an imported bottle of water might be. A container vessel uses 9g of fuel per tkm (that’s metric tons carried x distance traveled), 80g of water per tkm, and releases 17g of GHGs per tkm. The distance from China to Fiji is 8,000km, which gives us exactly 0.25tkm ( (0.025kg / 1t/1000kg) x 8,000km = 1.0tkm). So, 2.3g of fossil fuels, 20g of water, and 4.3g of GHGs per bottle delivered to Fiji from China.
Now let’s look at the trip to the US. The distance from Fiji to San Francisco is 8,700km. But this time the bottles will be full, so they will have a mass of 1.025kg each. This gives us a much larger value of 9.8tkm ( (1.025kg / 1t/1000kg) x 8,700km = 8.9tkm) which I will round up to 9tkm. So, 81g of fossil fuels, 720g of water, and 153g of GHGs per bottle delivered to the US from Fiji.
Since the fossil fuels end up being accounted for in the GHG emissions I’ll ignore those values for now. The total amount of water used to produce and deliver one bottle of imported water is 6.74kg (5kg + 20g + 1kg + 720g)! And the amount of GHGs released amount to 250g (93g + 4.3g + 153g), or 0.25kg, or 0.00025 tons. If you wanted to offset your annual imported water habit (are you eco-chic Hollywood types listening?) with DriveNeutral it would cost you $0.68 (0.00025 tons/day x 365 days/year x $7.50/ton).
But how much does it cost to deliver the water from halfway around the world? Let’s assume that the cost of transportation is based on our fossil fuel use assumptions above and that the bottle producer and the shipping company charge double their material cost. I am not sure if these are valid assumptions, but they are just assumptions after all… So, 160g of fossil fuels to make the bottle, 2g to deliver it to Fiji, and 81g to deliver the full bottle to the US. From economics we learn that fixed costs (equipment, etc.) in high-volume production are negligible in the long run so it is pretty safe to assume that the cost of making and delivering the bottled water is linked to its variable cost. In this case the variable cost is the fossil fuel (since the water comes out of the ground for free), which amounts to 0.243 kg. A standard oil barrel holds 159 liters and one liter of oil weighs 850g/liter, so one barrel holds 135.15kg of oil. One barrel costs between $50 and $70 (let’s say $60, depending on OPEC’s mood and other factors), so 0.243kg would cost $0.11 (1 barrel/135.15kg x $60/barrel x 0.243kg). And applying our earlier mark-up assumption, the cost to produce and deliver a bottle of imported water is $0.22, leaving $1.28 per bottle profit for the manufacturer and the retail store.
I hope that answers your question Maryline!
Pablo Päster, MBA
Sustainability Engineer
www.AskPablo.org
Pablo(dot)Paster(at)gmail(dot)com
10/22/07 – Comments were turned off due to excessive spamming, sorry…
August 18, 09 at 22:37 pm PDT | Wat kost een flesje water echt? writes:
[...] De productie van een lege plastic waterfles (1l) kost ongeveer 5 liter water [...]
Comments
July 12, 2007 at 16:52 pm PDT | Marianne writes:
FiJi Water is not only better tasting but, the PH is keeping my Uric Acid Stones from building up. FiJi Water is my life line. I not only drink it I cook with it. Before anyone talks they should go and test the PH level in all water City, Well, other Bottled.
July 13, 2007 at 14:48 pm PDT | Ann writes:
Very nice article. Thanks for taking the time to write it down. Keep up the good work.
July 16, 2007 at 1:14 am PDT | Apteka internetowa writes:
I keep telling the same story to would-be bloggers.
July 28, 2007 at 13:05 pm PDT | diyet writes:
Wasting 6 times of 10 times as much water to produce drinking water that may not be as bad at all running in your water lines is being insensitive to the environment. I’d recommend installing water purifiers in taps, which is not only cheaper but also has very little carbon footprint.
August 06, 2007 at 13:56 pm PDT | Tapeten writes:
Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. So please keep up the great work. Greetings.
August 14, 2007 at 4:19 am PDT | Alex writes:
Thanks for the post! I somehow missed this and wouldn’t have known without your post. I heard about it on boagworld.com’s podcast but I’ve been following your work since the late ’90’s.
Thanks for all your hardwork and your recent book. It’s been a great addition to my library!
September 08, 2007 at 4:23 am PDT | kozmetik writes:
The real problem is that in most parts of the world, the U.S. included, is that only an idiot would drink the tap water (anyone who wants to refute this claim needs to drink the tap water in central/south florida), so what are we to do, I myself drink the 0.69 cent gallon jugs of drinking water from the grocery store (just because it tastes slightly better than my swimming pool water, which in turn tastes better than my tap water) , my wife on the other hand refuses to drink anything but EVIAN, to me this is insanity, and considereing the state of the economy I highly doubt Ill be able to afford our house and her EVIAN(which to me is right up there with FIJI and movie theatre popcorn)in another year or so when were all stuck in the midst of a great depression unlike the world has ever seen. THats why its time to move out into the woods and dig a well (just dont tell my wife)… anyway, if any of you wackos want to complain about my runon sentences , go right ahead, just heed these words, WATER PURIFICATION TABLETS, cause pretty soon were all gonna need them, and desperately… anyway those of you who dont think so go right ahead, we need to thin out the herds anyway, you all have a good day now, and dont drink too much water
September 08, 2007 at 4:25 am PDT | sinema writes:
The bottled water issue is not going away. I am from the small town of McCloud in far northern california. Nestle, one of the largest multi-nationals on the planet is attempting to hijack our community water supply to enhance their own bottom line.
The bottled water industry has done a phenomenal marketing job. They have convinced the gullible masses that it is better to pay exorbiant rates for a public resource that is available to the masses at a fraction of the cost (both environmental and in dollars). This discussion focuses on Fiji brand. The much larger issue is the bottled water industry itself. Are we, as a society, going to let a life-sustaining, public resource become commodified by a handful of greedy corporations? Are we going to consume absurd amounts of energy and oil to produce a toxic (PET) by-product that clogs our landfills (the vast majority of it is not recycled). Or are we, as a society, going to marginalize bottled water the same way that we marginalized tobacco, asbestos, lead paint and DDT.
The choice is ours. Boycott bottled water.
September 08, 2007 at 4:29 am PDT | magazin writes:
The bottled water issue is not going away. I am from the small town of McCloud in far northern california. Nestle, one of the largest multi-nationals on the planet is attempting to hijack our community water supply to enhance their own bottom line.
The bottled water industry has done a phenomenal marketing job. They have convinced the gullible masses that it is better to pay exorbiant rates for a public resource that is available to the masses at a fraction of the cost (both environmental and in dollars). This discussion focuses on Fiji brand. The much larger issue is the bottled water industry itself. Are we, as a society, going to let a life-sustaining, public resource become commodified by a handful of greedy corporations? Are we going to consume absurd amounts of energy and oil to produce a toxic (PET) by-product that clogs our landfills (the vast majority of it is not recycled). Or are we, as a society, going to marginalize bottled water the same way that we marginalized tobacco, asbestos, lead paint and DDT.
The choice is ours. Boycott bottled water.
September 10, 2007 at 1:54 am PDT | portrait artists writes:
I was a bit scared upon knowing that Fiji gets its bottle from China. Here in our place, a lot of products from China have been banned. Toys made from China are reported to contain lead. There are canned goods that contain worms, cockroaches and other yucky stuff. And have you heard about the Menu Foods issue? Now, here comes one great tasting and thirst quenching products that takes its container from China. Isn’t this a bit alarming?
October 03, 2007 at 4:59 am PDT | cam balkon writes:
just drink the water and shut up….if you’re really that worried about the environmental aspects of the fiji water, you wouldn’t be drinking it in the first place…
October 07, 2007 at 19:05 pm PDT | John Mashey writes:
Penn & Teller on bottled water (13 minutes), not science, but fun, from the BS series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc
Blind taste tests of NY water versus bottled water.
Water menu & tasting in Los Angeles restaurant, utterly priceless.
Everest Water … from Corpus Christi, TX Municipal Water Supply…
October 13, 2007 at 9:51 am PDT | Dee writes:
I know that I am comming at the end of a very important discussion, and my comments may never be seen because of the impact of the first few weeks of posting and the interest that always subsides a few weeks after a question is posted but here it goes for all who keeps interest.
One: The water treatment plants are already built, running most updated, and insure safe water for their consumers, who has put the deposit on the bottles (sewage, waste, and water managment systems). Most of these systems are already paid for; now we are putting money toward forgien markets for water that is just as safe as water from our taps. So all the money spent goes now towards processing water the figi way to pay for their equipment for their city, when a simple cheaper up grade may be available if the Figi water is refined better than our local cities. Thus when the water is spent in forgien markets, although transportation costs are job generating for our people to get the water to the local markets, it is about the only plus here.
TWO: Water is a presious commodity, if we decide to neglect the cleaning of our water, up grading our systems, or employing people in our area to supply this presious commodity, because we like the Figi Water more, does that give us licence to not clean our water and continue the degregation that sent the consumer to the forgien markets?
THREE: If we pull in the bottles, not just the water, pay our nickel or dime for deposit, or not, and it goes to our recycling systems, or waste land fills, who is responsibile for the management of the plastic after use of a forgien marketing system?
There are many more aspects of this than just likeing the Figi or any other forgien marketed bottled water, when we are able to apply this money to our systems to achieve the same quality of water to consume. Our equipment and water stops being processed and the degregation of local supply deminish to a point that even recreation, food (fish), natural filtrations systems are all effected because the monies are given to a forgien market. I have personally tasted the Figi water, it is good, as good a water goes, but this also does not exclude the tampering with the water bottles that have been getting thinner and thinner and more apt to tampering other than the seal cap for you protection. etc, etc, and there is so much more!
October 16, 2007 at 19:28 pm PDT | Jake writes:
Ive been living in Fiji and it has over 30020 Islands and 25% of all those Island arent habated that means no one lives there and the population of the country right now is 800,000!!Just Imagine a small place like that with a small population,Its product is famous all over Hollywood!Plus its the only source of cleanest water in the world away about 200,00000 kilometeres from any factories!
October 18, 2007 at 22:03 pm PDT | Pablo writes:
View Larger Map
October 18, 2007 at 22:07 pm PDT | Pablo writes:
Click on the link in my previous comment to see a satellite image of the supposed Fiji bottling plant. It doesn’t really look anything like on the bottle…