This Emergency is Sponsored by Nestlé
Whenever there is a disaster that puts people out on the street, bottled water is there. Be it flood, drought, hurricane, fire or water main break, bottled water is always around to save the day. The camera from news coverage of such events will often pan by several cases of bottled water — conveniently delivered for free from a far away place — as if to depict that safety has arrived. The bottled water industry has certainly done a good job in recent years of associating their product with emergencies. But do we really need bottled water in most emergencies?
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An Oregon County Shuns the Bottle
Multnomah County, Oregon, which includes the city of Portland, took back the tap by passing a resolution prohibiting the purchase of bottled water with county funds. Members of the Multnomah Country Board of Commissioners were unanimous in their decision to ban the bottle. The county even joined Food & Water Watch’s national campaign to Take Back the Tap.
Members of the Multnomah Country Board of Commissioners voted unanimously against the bottle to save money and the environment. The county also joined Food & Water Watch’s national campaign to Take Back the Tap.
Commissioner Barbara Willer, who led the effort, was motivated by a desire to see the county save money and to protect the environment from unwanted waste and pollution. She punched her point home by reminding people just how costly bottled water can be when she said, “Buying bottled water is more expensive than buying gas.”
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Default Set to Misleading
The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) won its lawsuit against Eco Canteen, Inc., a company that distributes reusable stainless steel canteens. A U.S. District Court in western North Carolina awarded IBWA a permanent injunction against Eco Canteen for what was deemed false and misleading advertising — their TV commercials claimed that steel containers were safer than plastic bottles.
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Another Round in the Battle Against the Bottle
CNBC’s Power Lunch provided a forum today for yet another debate on the subject of bottled water versus the tap, following a special segment called Liquid Assets. Food & Water Watch Senior Legislative and Policy Analyst Mitch Jones squared off against International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) President and CEO Joe Doss in front of program hosts Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Sue Herera and Tyler Mathisen.
Food & Water Watch Senior Legislative and Policy Analyst Mitch Jones squares off against International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) President and CEO Joe Doss on CNBC’s Power Lunch. In our opinion, Jones wins.
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Paris Sparkles
The New York Times reported this week that the city of Paris is now offering residents free sparkling water. While the program is ostensibly designed to wean Parisiennes off a popular guilty pleasure (red wine) we’re charmed that they’ve chosen the humble water fountain as the delivery method of choice for their efforts.
Let them drink water! (Wait, it's SPARKLING water !) Eau de Paris, the local water utility, offers free sparkling water at a public fountain in Reuilly Gardens. The fountain is a way to encourage Parisiennes to kick the bottled water habit.
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IBWA Promotes Bad Choice to Young People in New Video
IBWA targets teens in their new campaign, telling young people to protect their freedom of choice. But choosing bottled water is a bad choice for many reasons.
The International Bottled Water Association’s (IBWA) has proudly released a video on their consumer website called Bottled Water: Show Your Support. Something tells me they are getting nervous.
The video features a teenager listing the industry’s talking points, trying to drive home the point that bottled water is about choice. “Bottled water matters. You love to drink it any time because it’s refreshing, day or night, at home or on the go. For you, bottled water is your packaged beverage of choice.” It’s an obvious attempt to appeal to the independent thinking of a teenager by using over-simplified corporate speak to show that the freedom of choice behind a purchase of bottled water is cool.
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Kanye, “Say You Will” Take Back the Tap!
The champions of the tap vs. the outlaws of bottled water: TMZ should show how appealing it is when celebrities drink from the tap.
It’s August, so maybe there’s not much going on in the big city. Perhaps that’s why rapper Kanye West found himself tweeting about drinking New York City tap water last week. TMZ felt it was newsworthy in some way, so they mentioned the tweet on their website. It must have seemed trivial to some readers, so they expressed their dismay at how boring the tweet was. Since Kanye’s tweet about NYC tap is the kind of thing we like to hear, I found myself typing the URL for TMZ into my web browser to find out more. TMZ merely showed the contents of what Kanye tweeted—not much worth mentioning… until I noticed one particular photo-montage on their home page.
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The Ban Heard 'Round the World
Concord, Mass could end up sparking another shot heard around the world. Well, maybe not a shot – more like a court decision. The town is in the middle of a huge debate over whether or not it’s legal to ban the sale of bottled water there. At the heart of the issue sits 82-year-old Jean Hill: resident, grandmother, jam maker, and water activist, though she’s no ordinary water activist. She doesn’t even drink that much water, but she knows a sham when she sees one.
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Water: I'll take it, but don't wrap it up
The International Bottled Water Association recently reported a decline in the volume of bottled water sold in the United States for the second consecutive year. After a 2.7 percent decrease in 2009, the industry is looking for new ways to attract consumers to their products. Here are two egregious examples of their targeted marketing efforts:
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We Prefer Ad Spin When It’s Left to Don Draper
World Water Day is an excellent opportunity to consider the ways in which our choices as consumers affect world water resources. As many of you already know, bottled water contributes to the world’s pollution and waste problems. It is also a prime example of corporate spin run amok. While the oh-so-clever industry execs have convinced many people that bottled water is better than water from the tap, in most cases this is simply not true. It actually reminds us of another industry infamous for using misinformation to peddle its products…
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