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Plastic Water Bottles, Which Enabled a Drinks Boom, Now Threaten a Crisis (wsj.com)
Bottled water, which recently dethroned soda as America's most popular beverage, is facing a crisis. From a report: A consumer backlash against disposable plastic plus new government mandates and bans in places such as zoos and department stores have the world's biggest bottled-water makers scrambling to find alternatives. Evian this year pledged to make all its plastic bottles entirely from recycled plastic by 2025, up from 30% today and among the boldest goals in the industry. Executives at parent company Danone hope the move will help it regain market share and win over plastic detractors who are already pressuring the makers of straws, bags and coffee cups.
There's a big problem. The industry has tried and failed for years to make a better bottle. Existing recycling technology needs clean, clear plastic to make new water bottles, and bottled-water companies say low recycling rates and a lack of infrastructure have stymied supply. Danone, for its part, is betting the reputation of its flagship water brand on a new technology that claims to turn old plastic from things like dirty carpets and sticky ketchup bottles into plastic suitable for new water bottles. [...] Bottled-water sales have boomed in recent decades amid safety fears about tap water and a shift away from sugary drinks. Between 1994 and 2017, U.S. consumption soared 284% to nearly 42 gallons a year per person, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., a consulting firm. Further reading: Microplastics Found In 93 Percent of Bottled Water Tested In Global Study, and Amazon Wants To Curb Selling 'CRaP' Items it Can't Profit On, Like Bottled Water and Snacks: Report.
There's a big problem. The industry has tried and failed for years to make a better bottle. Existing recycling technology needs clean, clear plastic to make new water bottles, and bottled-water companies say low recycling rates and a lack of infrastructure have stymied supply. Danone, for its part, is betting the reputation of its flagship water brand on a new technology that claims to turn old plastic from things like dirty carpets and sticky ketchup bottles into plastic suitable for new water bottles. [...] Bottled-water sales have boomed in recent decades amid safety fears about tap water and a shift away from sugary drinks. Between 1994 and 2017, U.S. consumption soared 284% to nearly 42 gallons a year per person, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., a consulting firm. Further reading: Microplastics Found In 93 Percent of Bottled Water Tested In Global Study, and Amazon Wants To Curb Selling 'CRaP' Items it Can't Profit On, Like Bottled Water and Snacks: Report.
And if worse comes to worst, use aluminum cans! Beverages taste better from those anyhow...
When there is a disaster, the beer companies will switch over to water so that they can assist the disaster victims. And yes, they use aluminum cans.
https://www.nydailynews.com/ne...
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Mod up. The feedback loop is small, and therefore, more effective. In our area, this worked well in the 1980s (and beyond) when the glass soda bottles were washed at the factory and (*gasp*, zOMG!) reused.
A story comes to mind. As a kid, we'd hang out and buy candy at the nearby 7-11 convenience store. My friend pointed out that there were two bottles in the dumpster. Naturally, I dove into the garbage to return the bottles for the deposit money. After the lady behind the counter informed me that they didn't accept that particular brand, I walked back outside to find my friend laughing at me because he had just tried 5 minutes earlier.
Mineral water has things tap water doesn't. You are stupid.
Almost half the bottled water available in the US actually come from public water sources. They do filter it before bottling, and may add small traces of minerals such as sodium for taste.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I'm more concerned that we've now been conditioned to having to buy water in bottles when it's one of the most abundant substances on Earth.
You're free to drink all the sea water you like. It's *incredibly* abundant. *Potable* drinking water, on the other hand, can be remarkably rare in nature. If you can find a glacier-fed river you're lucky. Otherwise you have to take a chance on a spring-fed river that can be laced with heavy metals, or a pond or lake that can harbor toxic algae.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Water bottles are made from plastic. Plastic is made from oil. Oil comes from the ground. The excess carbon in the oil we pump up from the ground is becoming CO2 when the oil is burned, causing our climate problems
If we bury the used plastic bottles in landfills, we're just sequestering that carbon back underground. If the plastic is virtually impossible for bacteria to biodegrade, that means it won't be converted into methane or CO2 by bacteria in the landfill, thus guaranteeing that the carbon remains sequestered underground. Where it originally came from.
People have become so conditioned to the idea that "recycling is good for the Earth!", that they no longer stop to think about when recycling might be unnecessary. If, as environmentalists wish, we stop using oil for fuel, then that will mean there will be plenty of oil left to manufacture plastics. So rather than waste a lot of extra energy sorting it and recycling it, just put it back underground where we originally got it from. Use new oil to make new plastics.
The problem is plastics which don't end up in landfills, and instead end up littering our streets, wilderness, rivers, and oceans. So it's pointless requiring companies to come up with new ways to recycle plastic when the problem is the plastic isn't collected in the first place - you can't recycle what isn't collected. All you need to solve the disposal problem is to increase the deposit on each bottle, to encourage the buyer to properly disposes of it after use.
A deposit also encourages homeless and low income people to collect and disposes of bottles which were thrown away improperly. If you think about it, bottle deposits are a way to give financial assistance to these people at zero cost to the government. It's paid for by people who choose to throw their bottles and cans away on the ground, instead of taking them to a collection center. Deposits are win-win-win, with the only losers being people who litter.
You don't have a metallic taste if they're coated. That's a failure of bottling and design.
Om, nomnomnom...
Japan does not do deposit, but does have an empty bottle container attached to most vending machines.
Japan has a weird cultural taboo of drinking or eating while walking.
So when they buy a drink from a vending machine, they will stand there by the machine while they consume it, then drop the empty container in the bin.
In normal countries, people will retrieve the drink from the machine and walk away with it. So the attached bin will be of little use.
Ah, but this highlights one of the best features of the deposit model that isn't immediately apparent. Once those pieces of garbage are worth 10 cents a piece (as they are in my province), many homeless will spend a majority of their day walking around town picking them up and taking them in for you at the bottle depot. It's the best form of homeless subsidy ever - they clean up, and basically get paid a commission for doing it. Many homeless here survive completely on the availability of deposit-bearing drink containers littered along the ground. I can bet you a Coke bottle wouldn't last five seconds out on the street of my city.
I live in Belgium. If you add cherries, is it still beer?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I work at an award-winning landfill. My county encourages recycling and makes it easy to do. That said, plastic water bottles...heck, plastic bottles of any kind are the third worst pollutant, in my opinion. The blow around and last practically forever. The second worst is Styrofoam. You have no idea. At least it eventually disintegrates into tiny little beads, not that those are great but at least they can't be seen. The worst is plastic bags/plastic wraps of all sorts but especially plastic shopping bags. These things blow everywhere eventually become brittle from UV exposure but never truly deteriorate. Solutions? Huge deposit fees, like half the cost of the product. Two dollars for a bottle of water? Make that three but you get a dollar back when you return the bottle. Plastic bags? Similar concept. Dollar a bag, for example, refundable upon return of the bag. Styrofoam? Cellulose packing peanuts that dissolve in water already exist. Let's ramp up that technology and eliminate Styrofoam.