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Bottled water industry trends
Bottled water competitive industry economics
Effects of bottled water on society, the economy and the environment
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“Tapped” is a decorated film documentary by directors, Stephanie Soechtig, Jason Lindsey and writer Josh David composed to inform individuals of the implications of the bottle water industry, relative corporate effects on communities, environmental hazards and drawn conclusions of their use ( (David & Lindsey, 2009). The documentary begins highlights two regions of the United States: Main and South Carolina. Due to specific water rights, these states allow water to be obtained by any person. As such, corporations (Nestle, Pepsi and Coke) basically drained this natural resources from these communities causing water shortages, essentially dehydrating the landscape and influencing a drought (David & Lindsey, 2009).
The film debunks the idea that
Maude Barlow’s “Water Incorporated: The Commodification of the World’s Water” gives a voice to a very real but vastly unknown issue: the privatization of water. I refer to it as vastly unknown because it wasn’t until this article that I was even aware such a power struggle existed. Barlow first introduces startling statistics, meant to grab the attention of its reader. Once she has your attention, she introduces the “new generation of trade and investment agreements.” (306) This includes referencing many different acronyms such as, FTAA, NAFTA, GTAA and WWF. FTAA, NAFTA, and GTAA are the villains of this story. Simply put, the privatization of water would end in socioeconomic turmoil and dehydration worldwide.
Cynthia Barnett and Peter H. Gleick both address the business behind the bottled water industry. In “Business in a Bottle”, Barnett explains how the bottled water industry started, how the industry is struggling with the law regarding drawing its water from natural resources, and how it uses its marketing to imply the false location on where they got the water (128-138). Barnett then concludes that the bottled water industry helps economy with the job opportunities they provided and that consumers do not really care about the content of their bottled water because all they care about are the “convenience, the packaging, and the price” (141). On the other hand, in “Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show”, Gleick
“Don’t waste that water! Kids in Africa don’t even have water to drink!” Almost every American has heard this saying before. We have heard this because there are water shortages in third world countries like Africa, as seen in the movie “Blue Gold”. But why have we developed this notion that there are only water shortages in third world countries? When in reality, there is a shortage of water right here in our home country. The Colorado River’s water is high in demand as it serves millions of people, powers industries, and is home to all different kinds of wildlife. The Colorado River will not be able to keep up with the increasing demand of water and soon enough the river will go dry. Organizations like the Colorado River Water Users Association are trying to change the way that the water is used and adjust how it is managed. The Colorado River is drying up and the western states are running out of water, however, public policy is trying to regulate and preserve the Colorado River to make it more sustainable in the future.
Although water is all around, very little is drinkable. Six billion people live on earth and 1.1 billion in 31 countries are unable to access safe, clean drinking water. California has only 20 years of water supply left. Ironically, even the wettest place on earth, Cherrapunji, India, has often water shortages. After years of millions of people dying of thirst and disease, a corporate movement to find a solution to the water crisis has now swept the world. Water, a fleeting resource vital to every life, every single day of the year, is now being taken out of the governments control and becoming a commodity bought and sold by big business, a.k.a privatization.
In the documentary, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, it follows several people and countries world-wide in their fight for fresh water. The film exposes giant corporations as they bully poorer developing countries to privatize their own supply of fresh water. As a result of the privatization, corporations make a hefty profit while the developing countries remain poor. Blue Gold: World Water Wars also highlights the fact that Wall Street investors are going after the desalination process and mass water export schemes. This documentary also shows how people in more developed nations are treating the water with much disregard, and not taking care of our finite supply. We are polluting, damming, and simply wasting our restricted supply of fresh water at an alarming speed. The movie also recognizes that our quick overdevelopment of housing and agriculture puts a large strain on our water supply and it results in desertification throughout the entire earth. The film shows how people in more industrialized nations typically take water for granted, while others in less industrialized nations have to fight for every drop.
Background. In an effort to limit waste, the State Park Service (SPS) allowed individual state parks the choice to place a ban on the sales of non-reusable bottles within their parks. Such parks would, instead, provide water refill stations. Consequently, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) has protested the change and is currently supporting a bill that would cut funding going to the new refill stations, and prohibit the SPS from putting any taxpayer
“How can you buy or sell the sky-the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? We will decide in our time” (Chief Seattle: 1855). In the Documentary “Flow – for the love of water” it visualizes the global crisis we face on Mother’s Earth as it pertains to the diminishing of fresh water. The Documentary portrays along with the help of experts that this global crises is affecting each and every one of us in today’s society including animals. The film shows us that water is constantly being wasted, polluted, and privatized by big co operations. Prime examples of these greedy companies were mentioned in the film such as Nestle, Thames, Suez, Vivendi, Coca Cola and Pepsi.
Hocus Pocus is a 1993 film directed by Kenny Ortega. It is a very enjoyable movie with a good cast. The movie genre is comedy, horror, and fantasy. The film is based on a story about Garris and David Kirchner. And it is starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker. The story follows the villainous trio of witches, who are inadvertently resurrected by a teenage male virgin. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts.
For ever water bottle made, non-renewable resources are wasted to produce an unnecessary luxury. For the bottled water Americans enjoy, seventeen million barrels of oil are used (excluding transportation), which could fuel more than 1.3 million cars for a year. Most water is imported and exported from places that are thousands of miles away, like Fiji. Although oil is controversial in nature, for every one liter of water produced, three liters are used; the excess water wasted can supply clean water to the world’s poorest countries. Moreover, the energy used in bottle production can supply energy to over 190,000 homes. The resources that can be replaced by ceasing the production of water bottles can solve many global problems faced by a growing population.
Due to that particular myth, the bottled water industry is worth billions of dollars, but causing outrageous water droughts around the world. Lake states, "As of 2013 , bottled water sales worldwide topped $117 billion, with experts predicting annual revenues to increase to $195 billion by 2018". Money is being wasted on bottled water. It is the same thing as tap water and we are paying entirely too much for it. We are paying for something that is destroying the world we have to live in, better yet, a world where our children have to live in as well. The money that is being spent on bottled water could be used for fresh tap water in our homes. The money that’s been given to these companies are actually going toward making their
There is no reservation in saying that water issues are a certainly a global phenomenon. Depending on where you are situated in the world, water concerns range from drought due to climate change to pollution and privatization. Unfortunately for us, these concerns are not mutually exclusive either. This paper, however, is focused with the ethical implications of water privatization specifically with the commodification of bottled water. Water privatization is best understood as the private sector (as opposed to the public sector) participating and competing in the acquisition, sanitation and sale of water. Essentially, turning what is public good into an economic good. Bottled water has rapidly emerged as ubiquitous international commodity due to globalization. Nestle, the largest supplier of bottle water worldwide, is often at the forefront of criticism and contention when it comes to water commodification at both the national and international scale. This approach has justifiably lead to criticisms that companies, like Nestle, prey on socially and politically vulnerable regions (or those believed to be least politically and socially resistant) for their freshwater resources and because this, it adversely affects local communities by limiting their access, increasing freshwater prices, and degrading the environment. In this paper, I will argue that the commodification of water violates the ethical principal that access to clean water is a right. I will look through two ethical lenses: utilitarianism and deontology.
The data provided by IBWA (International Bottled Water Association) reveal that bottled water has become extremely popular in the US market. More that $11 billion dollars has been spent for the consumption of bottled water and its consumption increase three times in the last 10 years. The market of bottled water in the United States is the second largest apart from the soft drink. In 2006, the U.S consumption of bottled water was more than 32 billion liters compared to 20 billion liters consumed in 2001. Yearly, an individual in Houston consumes average of 90.5 liters of water more than global average of 24.2 liters. Such growth in the consumption of bottled water is presumable consumers’ perception about safety, purity and convenience of bottled water. Typically, increasing public awareness of bottled water makes 50% of Houston population to drink bottled water and approximately one-third of Houston population drink bottled water regularly. Since 1976, there has been an increase in the market of bottled water in Houston and the United States as a whole. (See Fig 1).
There are times when events might compromise the local water supply. This can happen during disasters of numerous sorts. In these events, the supply of potable water is a necessity for the local community. However, even this only serves to illustrate the insanity of how the widespread marketing of bottled water has become a burden to society. Having worked for 17 years in emergency services, I have personally seen how much water an emergency management department must keep on hand for even small communities. The cost of this resource has become increasingly expensive for local governments due to the marketing campaign, and widespread popularity, of bottled water. If more people turned to tap water, the result would be lower taxes stemming from cheaper prices for emergency management
tap debate has been on American consumers. Consider the inhabitants of other countries; people who would give anything to have the luxury of drinking water, much less the leisure to argue about which type they prefer. In his article, Tom Standage states that “More than 2.6 billion people...lack basic sanitation, and more than one billion...lack reliable access to safe water” (Standage 25). That’s 2.6 billion people who are living without sanitation for water. That’s over 1 billion who don’t have water that’s safe to drink. These people will die young from water borne diseases and dehydration. Americans have advanced sanitation and a reliable source of clean water, but instead of helping others less fortunate, the U.S spends billions of dollars and gallons of oil creating bottled water with little purpose other than to look better than tap. While we are spending time deciding what brand of water we like best, our fellow humans must walk 8 hours in the desert to a mud pit, dig a hole in the clay, and retrieve what can hardly be called water from it. Even after this 8 hour walk and hour of collecting water, there is so little that boiling it for sanitation eradicates the entire water supply. Were the money from water bottle production saved, it could provide others with a safe source of water. Tap water can not only save money, but it can save
Nestlé was accused of wasting 30% of water they pump; it’s shocking to know that for one liter of water to reach the shelf takes 80 plus liters of oil and 3 liter of water which is incredibly inefficient. In fact Nestlé intended to increase the amount of production of bottled water calling it the next hot commodity, which is not a good feeling when it comes to sustainability. As a corporation, they have the mentality that if they don’t bottle this water, some other company will. I would like to point out that Starbucks stopped bottling water in California during the time of drought. The issue is many other industries would be using the water for their operations but they actually need it and not creating a problem instead of solving one. Most of the water bottling companies make claims that they are only meeting consumer demand, but rationally thinking who would demand a less sustainable, less tasty and way more expensive than tap water. In 1970s the bottling water industry started, at that time people took it as a joke, but the marketing strategies were designed to scare people about the tap water and pictures of pristine springs and mountains were shown on the labels. Nestlé in one of its ads claimed- bottled water to