Earth Week: Greenwashing in the Bottled Water Industry

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Earth Day became official in the early 1970s, and now almost 200 countries celebrate Earth Day as a way to encourage sustainability, conservation, and awareness of the problems facing the environment today. As people caught onto the trend, corporations caught onto people. Today we are swamped with advertisements portraying products as eco-friendly or green, sometimes they accurately inform the consumer, most times they do not. It just so happens that these green claims come with more frequency from the corporations whose products are the least green; attempts to counteract what we should believe about their product.

Mount Rainier to Ban Bottled Water

Across the country numerous institutions have banned bottled water. Colleges, universities, and National Parks are leading the nationwide movement. Earlier this month, following a Corporate Accountability International petition, reports surfaced that Mount Rainier National Park could be one of the next National Parks to ban bottled water.

Notice the resemblance? Mount Rainier photo from Mount Rainier National Park's website.

Multiple accounts cite a March 25th press release (which I have been unable to locate) in which the park's superintendent, Randy King, writes that he is preparing Mount Rainier National Park for a bottled water ban. 

It appears that Mt. Rainier National Park will first install multiple refilling stations to establish infrastructure which will make it more convenient to opt for the tap, while cooperating with concessions to ensure reusable bottles are available at the park. 

"After refill stations and low-cost water bottles are in place, we’ll complete the analysis necessary to make a decision on the sale of bottled water in the park." Randy King says in a quote from Corporate Accountability International's Think Outside the Bottle site. 

Randy King also said, "The National Park Service is committed to being a worldwide leader in sustainability. Reducing, reusing and recycling are all steps in the right direction at Mount Rainier National Park.  We recognize 'reducing' our footprint as the most important of the 3R's."

The future doesn't look very bright for bottled water, especially at our National Parks, 14 parks have already banned the sale of bottled water. Amidst the growing opposition, the bottled water industry won't go down without a fight.

Soda Stream and Two Mega-Corporations

Soda Stream manufactures home carbonation systems, in other words, they let you make your favorite soft drink in your home. Naturally, Pepsi and Coke are doing their best to extinguish the idea of a cheaper, more convenient, more environmentally friendly alternative product on the market. According to reports, Soda Stream had to remove a commercial from the Super Bowl because of the complaints of Pepsi and Coke (whose delivery men are depicted in the commercial). 

Connecting the topic to bottled water; a large part of Soda Stream's marketing campaign is based on an environmentally friendly product. Soda is packaged in the same bottles as bottled water (and many other products), and people ask "why do you choose to single out bottled water, aren't these other products as bad for the environment?" (This is a common defense from bottled water companies in particular).There are a few reasons why bottled water is viewed differently from other products on the market that are also packaged in PET and other plastics.