Message in a Bottle

By: Charles FishmanWed Dec 19, 2007 at 8:22 AM

Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $15 Billion. A journey into the economics--and psychology--of an unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of indulgence.

Enlarge

We pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year -- in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic.

24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.

The Bottled Water Poll

If bottled water isn't proven to be either healthier or better for you, why drink it?
- 1) It's mobile and convenient to use a bottle
- 2) I don't know, I just do it without thinking
- 3) Bottled water tastes way better than tap water
- 4) Tap water isn't as healthy and good for me as bottled water

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles' journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation--which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

The bubbles in San Pellegrino are extracted from volcanic springs in Tuscany, then trucked north and injected into the water from the source.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity--something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from "one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth," as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze.

Each water bottler has its own version of this oxymoron: that something as pure and clean as water leaves a contrail.

San Pellegrino's 1-liter glass bottles--so much a part of the mystique of the water itself--weigh five times what plastic bottles weigh, dramatically adding to freight costs and energy consumption. The bottles are washed and rinsed, with mineral water, before being filled with sparkling Pellegrino--it uses up 2 liters of water to prepare the bottle for the liter we buy. The bubbles in San Pellegrino come naturally from the ground, as the label says, but not at the San Pellegrino source. Pellegrino chooses its CO₂ carefully--it is extracted from supercarbonated volcanic springwaters in Tuscany, then trucked north and bubbled into Pellegrino.

Poland Spring may not have any oceans to traverse, but it still must be trucked hundreds of miles from Maine to markets and convenience stores across its territory in the northeast--it is 312 miles from the Hollis plant to midtown Manhattan. Our desire for Poland Spring has outgrown the springs at Poland Spring's two Maine plants; the company runs a fleet of 80 silver tanker trucks that continuously crisscross the state of Maine, delivering water from other springs to keep its bottling plants humming.

We pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year--in excess of $1 billion worth of plastic.

In transportation terms, perhaps the waters with the least environmental impact are Pepsi's Aquafina and Coke's Dasani. Both start with municipal water. That allows the companies to use dozens of bottling plants across the nation, reducing how far bottles must be shipped.

Yet Coke and Pepsi add in a new step. They put the local water through an energy-intensive reverse-osmosis filtration process more potent than that used to turn seawater into drinking water. The water they are purifying is ready to drink--they are recleaning perfectly clean tap water. They do it so marketing can brag about the purity, and to provide consistency: So a bottle of Aquafina in Austin and a bottle in Seattle taste the same, regardless of the municipal source.

There is one more item in bottled water's environmental ledger: the bottles themselves. The big springwater companies tend to make their own bottles in their plants, just moments before they are filled with water--12, 19, 30 grams of molded plastic each. Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person. Durable, lightweight containers manufactured just to be discarded. Water bottles are made of totally recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, so we share responsibility for their impact: Our recycling rate for PET is only 23%, which means we pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year--more than $1 billion worth of plastic.

Some of the water companies are acutely aware that every business, every product, every activity is under environmental scrutiny like never before. Nestlé Waters has just redesigned its half-liter bottle, the most popular size among the 18 billion bottles the company will mold this year, to use less plastic. The lighter bottle and cap require 15 grams of plastic instead of 19 grams, a reduction of 20%. The bottle feels flimsy--it uses half the plastic of Fiji Water's half-liter bottle--and CEO Jeffery says that crushable feeling should be the new standard for bottled-water cachet.

"As we've rolled out the lightweight bottle, people have said, 'Well, that feels cheap,'" says Jeffery. "And that's good. If it feels solid like a Gatorade bottle or a Fiji bottle, that's not so good." Of course, lighter bottles are also cheaper for Nestlé to produce and ship. Good environmentalism equals good business.

From Issue 117 | July 2007

Print Newsletters

Browse current issue ›

Subscribe to Fast Company ›

Recent Comments | 52 Total

May 27, 2008 at 8:35pm by John Riley

In relation to quality and this discussion, most brands of bottled water have been tested and shown to have no health benefits above those of tap water, many consumers won’t be convinced. Consumers are increasingly worried about the quality of bottled water that is often bottled using the same municipal water supplies that come out of home tap water.
The amount spent on bottled water is staggering.
The global soft drink and bottled water manufacturing industry is expected to produce revenue of $146.5 billion in 2008, with growth projected to continue at a rate of four percent, with the U.S. at its forefront, producing revenue of an estimated $168.6 billion by 2012. Purified water is currently the leading global seller, with U.S. companies dominating the field. The U.S. is the largest consumer market for water the world, followed by Mexico, China, and Brazil . Driving this growth is the global rate of consumption rising by 10 percent in 2007.
The current mediascape, particularly women’s magazines, is saturated with images of celebrities flaunting premium water products in fashionable designer bottles,” he said. “This has particularly been the case with Fiji water, with celebrity uptake no doubt contributing largely to the brand’s success in the U.S.”
Females and younger consumers account for slightly larger levels of bottled water consumption, with media support behind a brand, the bottle design, and the label all playing a part. Women are also more diligent than men at drinking the recommended eight glasses of water a day, as well as being, on the whole, more health conscious
Here are some more details. Source is IBISWorld

http://www1.ibisworld.com/pressrelease/pressrelease.aspx?prid=124

Message in a Bottle

Related Stories

The Bottled Water Poll

Recent Comments | 52 Total

Sponsored Links