Corporate Bottled Water Takes the Greenwash to Twitter
“Bottled water is the greenest, healthiest drink on the shelf!” repeats @BottledH20Babe on Twitter over and over and over again. Is she a bot? No, but she is a lame greenwashing tool of the bottled water industry.
Why would someone like this, whose sole purpose is to make inane claims about the earth friendliness of bottled water and argue with anyone who believes differently, be on Twitter in the first place?
Simple. The International Bottled Water Association is getting scared. People around the world are wising up to the fact that bottled water is wasteful and bad for the environment. The bottled water industry has gotten accustomed to making mind-boggling profits, and a movement to reduce bottled water consumption is a threat to their bank balance.
BottledH20Babe, whose Twitter profile links directly to the International Bottled Water Association website, has a single retort to those who tell ‘her’ why drinking water is bad: “It’s better than soda.” Truly deep and thought-provoking. It makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of bottled water right now.
The association’s website, Bottled Water Matters, actually has a petition (!) asking people to tell elected officials that “I, the undersigned, drink bottled water and understand that it is a safe, healthy, high-quality beverage choice. Bottled water is a modern-day choice because of its convenience and good taste.”
Wow, corporate bottled water spooks. You’re really killing us with your breathtaking logic. Luckily the Union of Concerned Scientists has a quick summary of reasons bottled water ISN’T green, and it actually makes sense.
Fossil fuel consumption. Approximately 17 million barrels of oil—enough to run 1 million cars for a whole year—are used to make plastic water bottles, according to the Pacific Institute. The burning of oil and other fossil fuels (which are also used to generate the energy that powers the manufacturing process) emits global warming pollution into the atmosphere.
Water consumption. The growth in bottled water production has increased water extraction in areas near bottling plants, leading to water shortages that affect nearby consumers and farmers. In addition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.
Waste. Only about 10 percent of water bottles are recycled, leaving the rest in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose.
Bottled water is not and never will be green. We don’t need lighter plastics – we need people to wake up to the simple fact that what’s in those disposable bottles is, in many cases, exactly the same as what comes out of their tap.
Link Bottled Water Dumbassery + Union of Concerned Scientists
Related posts:
- O.N.E. Water, An Eco Alternative to Bottled Water
- Timberland CEO Struggles with Company Ban on Bottled Water
- Earth Day Fail: Coca-Cola Promotes Bottled Water
- Aluminum Water Bottles-Eco Deal of the Day
- Mother Jones Unveils the Greenwashed Truth about Fiji Water
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
