Bottled Water

The bottled water industry is fighting against the backlash against bottled water through marketing campaigns.

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Readers of TriplePundit  don’t need reminding that the waste stream derived from buying bottled water is an environmental hazard. Less than a third of all plastic bottles get recycled in the USA, when they could be put to effective second-life use. Ford Motor Company announced last week that in partnership with REPREVE, they plan to [...]

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Several studies show that minority parents are more likely to give their children bottled water. A study by the department of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin found that African American and Latino families are three times more likely to give their children only bottled water as compared to white families. The Archives of [...]

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California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris filed a lawsuit against three companies over claims that they misled consumers by marketing plastic water bottles as biodegradable. Harris filed the lawsuit in the Orange County Superior Court on October 26 against ENSO Plastics, Balance Water and AquaMantra. Balance and Aquamantra sell plastic water bottles marketed by ENSO [...]

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To date, over a dozen colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada have campus-wide bans of the plastic bottles. A dozen more have partially halted bottle water sales to certain campus departments, and hundreds of schools have installed multiple “hydration stations”, where students and faculty can refill their own bottles. Some of the bans have resulted from student activism, while others have been a calculated effort by school administrators to save money.

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“The golden age of water is over,” asserted Charles Fishman, author of “The Big Thirst,” as he shared a sweeping view of global water usage with participants at the recent Commit!Forum in New York. Fishman presented alternating stories of dramatic progress in water management and accounts of worsening access to clean drinking water as he described [...]

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Sometimes it really is the little things that count. Proving they’re on track to be the coolest airline flying, Virgin America is going out of their way to promote “water bottle refill stations” at San Francisco International Airport. The stations have popped up immediately after the security checkpoint to encourage travelers to hang on to [...]

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The road to sustainable business now passes through a glass tunnel called “Transparency.” Consumers exercise their singular, unequivocal influence: their ability to choose the company that not only creates, markets and sells a product that is to their liking, but does so in a manner that is consistent with their values. And here, in this [...]

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Plastics from single serving water bottles, or grocery bags accumulating in the world’s oceans have long been in the spotlight as eco villians. Initially, biodegradable and compostable plant material based bottles seemed to be the cure for this convenience quandary. But beyond the simple math of eliminating petroleum as source material, there’s a problem: Most [...]

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Yes, this is a real product. It’s Evian water in a disposable spray can. Why? Well, according to Evian’s website, the “millions of tiny droplets” moisturize thirsty skin, help set make up, and do all kinds of other refreshing things. It’s even (supposedly) possible to recycle the can, which comes in a number of convenient [...]

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FIJI water has gotten so much flack lately, I’m starting to feel sorry for them. On one hand they’ve been shaken down by the military government of Fiji for a bigger slice of their revenues. On the other, they’ve been been accused of supporting that very same regime.  They’ve been beaten up by every environmentally conscious media [...]

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Since 1961, Singapore imported drinking water for its now 5 million citizens from Malaysia. One of the contracts expired this year, and for political and economic reasons Singapore’s government did not renew either agreement. What was at one time 40% of the country’s drinking water, however, has got to come from somewhere, so now water from the tap will come from salvaged rainwater, desalination, and finally, NEWater.

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The Newport Trial Group filed a class action lawsuit against the Fiji Water Company in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, CA on behalf of Desiree Worthington and other individuals to seek restitution for “the false claims from which [Fiji Water Company has] richly profited.” The lawsuit alleges that the company made money from [...]

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If Fiji Water pulled out of Fiji, wouldn’t that make it just Water? Would people care? Or is it just the square bottle that they like, or the fact that it comes from far away? We almost had a chance to learn the answer to these and other fascinating question as Fiji Water engaged in a standoff with the government of the island nation that provides their water and their name.

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! by Sarah A. Maine The most contentious issue of the 201 Net Impact Conference’s opening keynote with Kim Jeffery, President and CEO of Nestle Waters, and William McDonough, of Cradle to Cradle fame, was the idea that bottled water is a convenience and [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! Water is water, right? Not quite. The container and the source of the beverage distinguishes how water is perceived in the marketplace. Recycled or reusable? Spring or municipal? The photo is of Nestlé Waters CEO, Kim Jeffrey and myself after the Opening Keynote [...]

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One of Nestlé’s brands, Arrowhead, has made a huge move in Oregon. The company wants to tap at least 100 million gallons of water from a new spring near the state’s iconic Mount Hood. The new water source has the potential to reverse Nestlé’s sagging sales. But there’s a problem: more than a few Oregonians are furious.

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Three years ago, Pablo Paster wrote a post on 3p which attempted to quantify the various environmental impacts embodied in a bottle of FIJI brand bottled water. The post was the stuff of legend, spawning several follow ups in other publications and might even have influenced FIJI’s thankfully defunct “Fiji Green” campaign. Fast forward to [...]

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Back in 2005 San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed legislation, The Precautionary Principle, requiring its procurement officers to adhere to an approved list of environmentally preferable, or “green,” products. The result is SFApproved.org, a guide that describes approximately 1000 green products that San Francisco’s municipal employees are required to buy under local ordinances

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One International Bottled Water Association video, depending on one’s mood, may actually convince consumers to shy away from bottled water.

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! On a recent walk along New York City’s Union Square Park, I came across a beautiful sight: walking in 95-degree humid heat, I saw fountains and fountains of cold, clean, and free drinking water.  A city employee, wearing a ‘NYC Water’ t-shirt, urged [...]

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New York City is accelerating a public service announcement campaign that is letting its 8 million residents know that drinking its tap water is perfectly safe. New York’s Environmental Protection Commissioner, Cas Holloway, brings up an important point: if tap water is so bad for you, then why is all right in the city’s pizza, bagels, Italian ice, piroshkies, and other foods for which the Big Apple is famous?

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! During an information-sharing panel at the LOHAS Forum about the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf, many attendees had one simple question: what could they do to help? Charles Hambleton, producer of the documentary The Cove, suggested that anyone wanting to improve the [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! Every time the Sustainable Brands conference rolls around I’m thrilled by the authenticity and openness of the conference participants. But there are always one or two who slip through the cracks. This year’s culprit? h2O Natural Spring Water. The product was given out [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! For anyone trying to explain what sustainability is to a semi-curious relative or a completely out of touch co-worker, there could hardly be a better place to start than Annie Leonard’s twenty minute web video The Story of Stuff. The video features Leonard [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! You probably by now know that the plastics that go into bottled water are bad for the environment, and perhaps even not so good for you if it’s just nicely labeled tap water. Add to that the possibility the bottle contains BPA and [...]

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Dear Readers, Triple Pundit has had a heck of a year. With your help we’ve grown to be one of the most widely read online publications about sustainable business, brought in many new contributors, and helped stoke the fires of a new, green economy in many new places. We hope you’ve had a great time [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! At the 2009 Net Impact Conference, Adam Werbach called Fiji Water a “Dead Man Walking,” stating that the company has greenwashed its brand and that it was only a matter of time before its actions caught up with the company (read a NY [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! In some public spaces, it’s as hard to find a water fountain (or “bubbler” or “drinking fountain,” depending on your local lexicon) as it is to track down a pay-phone. But just as cell phones have made pay phones obsolete, the ubiquitous water [...]

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More articles on the controversy surrounding bottled water can be found here! Camelback, the Petaluma, Calif.-based maker of reusable water bottles, has donated 2,000 water bottles to the residents of Bundanoon, a small tourist town 90 miles southwest of Sydney, Australia. When it decided in July to ban the sale of bottled water, Bundanoon became [...]

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