Green is not always green. Just because the term “green” or prefix “eco” is put on a product does not make it so. We consumers must not be so gullible that we endorse every green product just because the manufacturer says to. A good example is Fiji bottled water. You probably have heard of wine snobs. Well, this is a case of water snobs. The bottle is beautifully decorated with tropical plants. It is designed in a square shape, which means more plastic was used to contain 500ml than if it had been cylindrical. It is marketed as water that has never been exposed to the environment or humans. It sounds great, right?
The bottle is made in the Fiji islands from petroleum. The water is taken from the Yagara aquifer and many of the Fiji islands have chronic water shortages. All small islands have water issues especially if they do not have the elevation to catch rain water. Fiji water is pricey, about 2x the price of Dasani water. It is shipped by boat from the Fiji atoll to the rest of the world. Anyone that can afford it probably lives in a place that already has clean affordable water.
Fiji has a website http://www.fijigreen.com/ explaining how green they are. Visit it. You will see that their goal is to become carbon neutral – a good thing. I think that it is hard to justify selling Fiji’s precious resource to affluent people thousands of miles away. In the process, a plastic bottle is produced which will not go away and a lot of energy is unnecessarily used to do this whole process. I do not care if they build hospitals in Fiji or try to become carbon neutral – this product is NOT necessary. It is crazy consumerism.
If you use a Brita water filter, good for you. According to Brita’s parent company, Clorox, one Brita filter cartridge can keep 300 plastic bottles from going to the land fill. The problem is that the filter cartridge cannot be recycled, at least not in the U. S. Brita in Europe recycles the cartridge. There is a movement to convince Clorox to come up with a recycling program here in the U.S. Go to this website http://www.takebackthefilter.org/ to find out more and sign the petition. Apparently, there is progress in the making!
The bottle is made in the Fiji islands from petroleum. The water is taken from the Yagara aquifer and many of the Fiji islands have chronic water shortages. All small islands have water issues especially if they do not have the elevation to catch rain water. Fiji water is pricey, about 2x the price of Dasani water. It is shipped by boat from the Fiji atoll to the rest of the world. Anyone that can afford it probably lives in a place that already has clean affordable water.
Fiji has a website http://www.fijigreen.com/ explaining how green they are. Visit it. You will see that their goal is to become carbon neutral – a good thing. I think that it is hard to justify selling Fiji’s precious resource to affluent people thousands of miles away. In the process, a plastic bottle is produced which will not go away and a lot of energy is unnecessarily used to do this whole process. I do not care if they build hospitals in Fiji or try to become carbon neutral – this product is NOT necessary. It is crazy consumerism.
If you use a Brita water filter, good for you. According to Brita’s parent company, Clorox, one Brita filter cartridge can keep 300 plastic bottles from going to the land fill. The problem is that the filter cartridge cannot be recycled, at least not in the U. S. Brita in Europe recycles the cartridge. There is a movement to convince Clorox to come up with a recycling program here in the U.S. Go to this website http://www.takebackthefilter.org/ to find out more and sign the petition. Apparently, there is progress in the making!
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4 comments:
Really great post. Great research on the Fiji Water product. I had a knee-jerk reaction against it, but you have taken the time to list all the reasons it is a poor environmental choice.
And thanks for linking to the Take Back The Filter campaign.
Cheers!
Beth
Beth, Thanks for the compliment and for reading my blog. I started reading your blog in Feb. as the Alguita sailed through the Pacific garbage patch. I read every post and get inspired. Our blogs may be somewhat redundant but I wanted to get information out to my immediate circle of friends and relatives. Hopefully it will spread from there. You made my day.
Linda
I want to applaud your efforts here. You are so right! Plastics are a major contributor to our environmental difficulties today. I always remember that great line from "The Graduate" when Benjamin is advised to pursue a career in "Plastics". It is no coincidence that since that film was made in 1969 the environment has been increasingly degraded. As I read your comments this morning I was drinking a bottle of Fiji Water. I wanted to find out more about its origins. Does it really come from Fiji? (for instance) I then chanced on your website and you struck a chord. As an aside I noticed your are a retired biology teacher. My daughter is this year completing her doctorate in marine biology. So indirectly I believe we are kindred spirits. I was about to suggest that you should research further the economic impact of the sale of Fiji water on the economy of Fiji. I majored in economics and spent my life in banking so I look at the economic aspect of things right away. But in this case it looks like you are right on target all the way. The company is not even owned by native Fijians. It was started by a Canadian in 1994 and then sold to a wealthy Hollywood couple in 2004. So even the wealth that accrues
from this venture primarily goes to benefit people who do not even live in Fiji.This is imperialism, pure and simple. I found a website that talks about this and points out that the company pays royalties to the local government to support various public projects in the area. This is the link to the website. (I hope it works)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/21/BUGE7NL8RA1.DTL
But this is small compensation considering the negative impact producing and transporting the water has on the environment, and as you point out, it seems almost immoral to do this if water shortages are endemic throughout these islands. But I've gotten a little far afield from your basic concern, which is the negative environmental impact of producing plastic in the first place. And I couldn't agree with you more. Now we are all spoiled. Nobody wants to return a glass bottle to the store for a 5c refund anymore. Just throw it in the trash bin marked "plastic" and forget about it. But we can't forget about it anymore. Our dependence on foreign oil seems to know no bounds. Everything we use today is made out of plastic - even the cars we drive. And that plastic is a derivative of petroleum. This is where the problem is. But we can't give short shrift to the economic side of the ledger either. People, and the world in many ways, have prospered enormously over the past 50 years due to the genius of our entrepeneurs in creating demand for goods and services that were heretofore unknown. But it seems like we have now reached the point where the "rubber meets the road". Everything has its price. And when it comes to the convenience of plastic it appears that it is exacting a price which no one anticipted forty years ago. Now we
have to do some "rethink". And we have to do it fast - before it's too late.
I appreciate your being there. You are doing a great service.
Most cordially,
James ~ from New Jersey.
Thanks for blogging about the Take Back The Filter campaign. We've had great success this week! Please check it out:
http://www.takebackthefilter.org/2008/11/brita-and-preserve-announce-filter.html
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