Bottled water, water filters, and the throwaway society

Over the course of the last year or so, there seems to have been something of a cultural shift away from bottled water. If I had to guess, I’d say it began with negative press for bottled water last summer. For example, there was this article in the New York Times Magazine, this article at FastCompany.com, and this editorial in favor of tap water in the New York Times. Later in the summer, there was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s executive order cutting off city funding for bottled water, and several other mayors have encouraged residents to drink tap water. Now bottled water is taboo among the environmentally conscious crowd.

On the most basic level, this is a positive development, but I think it demonstrates a weakness in the environmental movement. Indeed, many others have hinted at this problem before. For example,

All that discarded plastic also bothers Barbara Kancelbaum, a freelance writer in Park Slope. “It’s not like the bottles that carry water are worse than bottles carrying Pepsi,” said Ms. Kancelbaum, 42, who was so moved by the sight of overflowing garbage cans in Prospect Park that she posted an antibottled water message on an online bulletin board for local mothers. “The problem is that the water industry has exploded, so that there are many, many more bottles being used than there were before.”

“The solution,” she said, “is not to buy other kinds of drinks. The solution is to bring your own water.”

Indeed, many other products–not only drinks–are packaged in plastic which is equally damaging to the environment. Moreover, many products themselves are disposable these days. Referring to legislation imposing deposits on drink bottles, Eric A. Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council explained to the New York Times Magazine,

“As significant as the bottle-bill legislation is, the growing movement toward a throwaway society that started in the ’60s and ’70s is an even larger trend.”

Rather than focusing on minimizing our environmental footprints, we tend to work from a relatively concise list of ways in which we can reduce our impact. Environmental groups suggest that we take public transportation to work, turn off the lights when we leave the room, and now avoid bottled water and reuse our grocery bags, but rarely does anybody suggest the much bigger–but I suspect ultimately necessary–step of reducing our consumption by abstaining from buying a large television or a new computer. Yet even this would just be another item on that “relatively concise list” I referred to, and would miss the point. Taking public transit, avoiding bottled water, and refraining from buying a large screen TV are things that we can do to reduce our environmental impact, but in this consumerist society, it seems unlikely that we’ll achieve sustainability by following making lists of things like these. I think a better approach is to give environmental considerations a place in the everyday decision-making process. Rather than having people read the newspaper and deciding that they’ll avoid bottled water and plastic bags, I’d like to see an environmental movement that encourages people to think about the environmental impact of any decision–whether it be a question of buying a water bottle, a television, or a car. In other words, environmentalism ought to be more a state of mind and less a set of frenzies. Perhaps we can even get to the point where we don’t need the article in a major national newspaper to tell us what’s bad for the environment.

Of course, there is a major difference between water and just about everything else. Water is something that we can get from a faucet, thus eliminating the need for packaging and reducing the energy required to get it to us. Nonetheless, I think there’s still a point to be made. When I suggest that people think about the environmental impact of decisions, that doesn’t mean that nobody should do anything that has negative environmental consequences. It just means that the environment ought to be a consideration, in the same way that (for example) price is. If you really want that bottle of orange juice, go ahead, but if the marginal benefit over tap water doesn’t outweigh the natural resources, then hold off on it.

Having said all that, I think producers need to be held responsible over their own products, particularly packaging  I was struck by a line from the debate over a new bottle deposit law in Oregon:

By Day 3 in Salem, one dumbstruck grocer, pressed after his testimony, finally blurted out: “Are we responsible for all the containers and all the garbage we sell?”

Of course, the question was rhetorical, but why shouldn’t they be held responsible? The producers and retailers benefit from the sale of the product, so why not hold them responsible for minimizing the external costs? In fact, the European Union has such a system for packaging of all consumer goods. Wikipedia claims, predictably, that the system “encourages manufacturers to cut down on packaging as this saves them the cost of licence fees.”

Returning to the subject of bottled water, one of the natural beneficiaries of the decline of bottled water  has been filtered water. Indeed, Clorox (which markets Brita filters in the United States) joined Nalgene in sponsoring the Filter For Good campaign, which urged consumers to drink filtered water from reusable bottles rather than purchasing disposable bottles.  Several activists, noting the disposable nature of Brita filter cartridges, started the Take Back the Filter campaign, urging Clorox to provide consumers with ways to refill and recycle the cartridges. They note that in Europe, Brita cartridges are already recyclable through Brita. Asked by CNET News.com about the recycling issue, Brita public relations official Drew McGowan seems to miss the point:

“Our filters are made with carbon. Any impurities that can be found in water will stick to the carbon, which becomes nonusable, which is why it has to be changed. At this time, there is no way to recycle the carbon.”

Ok, the carbon isn’t recyclable, but I don’t think anybody was expecting that.  The issue is the plastic. Beth Terry, founder of the Take Back the Filter Campaign, says in the comments that Brita does recycle the carbon in Europe. McGowan does, however, seem to avoid the issue of the plastic. News.com further says of McGowan,

“But if it can be made physically and economically feasible, we are happy to do that,” he continued. He said Clorox examines every possible way to recycle filters in North America.

Given the lackluster response so far, I’m not holding my breath. I’ll hope for the best, but at least for now, my Brita filter (and I do sometimes use one) is just a step down from bottled water in the ranks of the throwaway society. It does at least save substantial amounts of energy required to transport water that might otherwise be consumed from a bottle.

Welcome

Despite what the title might suggest, this blog will not be about my–or anybody else’s–personal life. Rather, it will focus on the ways in which the everyday actions and happenings in the lives of ordinary people (this is the “personal” part of the title) affect larger issues (this, of course, is the “issues” part of the title). In particular, there are likely to be a lot of posts about things like food and junk mail.

I should emphasize that I claim no expertise on anything I write about. Nor do I have any sort of credential. I’m just a concerned citizen with an internet connection.