>> Bottled water sales are down — and FIJI’s in hot water now that Mother Jones magazine’s singled out this heavily-greenwashed company, drawing attention to the “military junta for which Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy.”
>> Yet the bottled water industry’s still trying to align itself with eco-causes — including our local eco-orgs. About 150 volunteers helped Friends of the Los Angeles River clean up the Van Nuys section of the waterway on Friday. The event was funded by a “$50,000 donation from Aquarius Spring, a bottled water branch of the Coca-Cola Co.” L.A. Times mentions the sponsorship — but doesn’t draw any connection between that and the fact that plastics made up the bulk of the crap volunteers picked out of the river.
>> Perhaps we can add fewer plastic water bottles to the many eco-benefits of high-priced oil that a new book by Christopher Steiner — $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better — points out.
Earlier:
10 reasons to ditch the bottled water habit
Bring your own cup and mug: An eco-stylish money-making habit
What’s in your bottled water?
Take back the tap, avoid new taxes
Photo by Mike Willis
I participated in the LA River clean up this past weekend and was actually interviewed by the LA Times reported (and only part of my statement ended up in the LA Times). When he asked what was in my trash bag, I dug around and told him “plastic” in the form of bags, wrappers, straws and other stuff and then mentioned that if companies saw all of this waste and were made responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, maybe they wouldn’t choose that sort of packaing. So the fact that that connection wasn’t mentioned in the article wasn’t for lack of someone saying it. Honestly though, at least the majority of the plastic we picked up was not from water bottles and other drink bottles.
Another funny thing is that there wasn’t any water available to participants by the end of the clean-up despite sponsorship by a water company! My boyfriend and I only had 1 single bottle of water between the two of us during the whole event. I did contact FoLAR though and they understood the compromises made by allowing support of an event to come from such a company. Based on the water sources they offered at previous clean-ups, the choice to have single serve bottles of water doesn’t sound like it was their favorite way of handling the situation.
Comment by M — August 24, 2009 @ 11:50 am
Anything for a buck in these tough times, I guess. But given the profit margin for FoLAR on the event, they easily could have given away a sigg bottle (w/logo) to each participant. Might have been a more responsible action and helped to offset the hideous soul-killing irony of the deal.
Comment by mel — August 24, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
There’s no question in my mind that water in plastic bottles is not good for the environment and even “the greatest advertising and marketing trick of all time” (quote from the excellent documentary ‘Tapped’)
Personally, I think it’s ok for non-profits to accept donations from folks like this, to find common ground with them where possible, but not to become timid in critiquing them when appropriate. It’s a balancing act.
Comment by joe linton — August 24, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
As President of FIJI Water, I encourage readers to read our response to the article, which we have posted on our blog: http://blog.fijigreen.com/2009/08/fiji-water-responds-to-mother-jones-article/ I also encourage readers to post any questions they might have on our blog, where all reasonable queries will be responded to by employee representatives.
We strongly disagree with the author’s premise that because we are in business in Fiji that somehow legitimizes a military dictatorship. We bought FIJI Water in November 2004, when Fiji was governed by a democratically elected government. FIJI Water does not nor will ever actively support the government of the day. The government does not speak for us and we cannot and will not speak for the government. What we can do is try to help the socio-economic development of Fiji as much as we can by running a world-class company that provides much-needed jobs, health care, education, and clean drinking water to the people who live in the villages surrounding our company and the greater community of Fiji.
John Cochran
President, FIJI Water
Comment by fiji-water — August 25, 2009 @ 11:49 am
mel brings up a good point — Where did the $50K go? Was the sponsorship money intended to go not just to the event but back into FoLAR’s general fund? I’m not against that — I’m just wondering if that’s what the deal was.
M — Did the invite to the cleanup at least encourage people to bring their own? I’m sort of getting the sense that we need more non-bottled water sponsorships — i.e. from people who do filtered tap water for conferences and the like….
joe — I agree with you to an extent, but what I’m pointing out here is that there’s no critique going on either on the part of FoLAR or LAT. Could accepting sponsorships from bottled water companies make nonprofits less likely to speak out against them? Or are they really able to bite the hand that feeds them — instead of just cleaning up after said hand’s litter after the fact?
Of course I run ads and accept sponsorships here too, some from corporations — so I’m not claiming to be pure of those influences. I do admit, however, that they ARE influences, as much as I’d like to think I try to remain uninfluenced.
Comment by Siel — August 25, 2009 @ 5:23 pm