Without meaning to indulge in a bit of Schadenfreude (I can’t get enough of this German word), I was happy to see that the bottled water market is starting to dry up. Bottled water was one of the first topics I blogged about on Energy Refuge and since then the world has changed and some times such changes can benefit the environment. True, the market is still growing, but at a much smaller pace than it had been before. Says BusinessWeek:
The $12-billion-a-year business has gotten whacked in the past year by the weak economy, an environmental backlash against plastic bottles, and competition from trendy canteens, often filled with tap water … U.S. consumers gulped 8.9 billion gallons of bottled water in 2008, a 2.3% increase from the previous year, according to the research firm Beverage Marketing. That’s a sharp decline, though, from the 8% to 12% annual growth the business enjoyed earlier in the decade.
I think the bottled water market has deservedly received a backlash for the utter decadence it represents. In a world of dwindling water resources, the rich, who often have access to clean tap water, help fill the planet with ever more trash just to look good with a ‘health’ accessory as they parade out of their high-tech gyms. It doesn’t make sense and it’s not ethical.
