• Nestle makes list of “100 Companies no Environmentalist Should Support” http://tinyurl.com/99wbx3 #
• More on the Nestle “Greenwash” complaint filed in Canada: http://tinyurl.com/8enhv3 #
• Santa Cruz Sentinel “Battle of the Bottle” gives the nod to tap over bottled water: http://tinyurl.com/9bke64 #
• Leeds bottled water ban “wonderful rebuke to the erroneous environmental claims of the companies who make it” http://tinyurl.com/73h93p #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Nashville Mayor, Councilman ask departments to stop spending taxpayer money on bottled water: http://tinyurl.com/6ue392 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• More on Nestle’s greenwashing ad complainthttp://tinyurl.com/78xfjf filed in Canada: #
• Letter to Editor (Niagra Falls Review) challenges assertions by Nestle spokesperson: http://tinyurl.com/9lzjm7 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Poland Spring barbecued yet again for their greenwashing “Eco” bottle: http://tinyurl.com/5kr2r2 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

A short article in TIME chronicles the nationwide battle over water, and not surprisingly, Nestle Waters of North America is singled out for their involvement in multiple battles:

Nestlé, with six of the top 10 brands and more than $2.2 billion in bottled-water sales, is the largest bottled-water company in the U.S., and it’s at the center of a water war on several fronts. As owner of Poland Spring, which uses 500 million gallons of Maine water a year, Nestlé could owe $96 million in tax each year if Wilfong’s proposal is passed. “His mission is misguided,” says Kim Jeffery, CEO of Nestlé North America, which now pays only for the land where the springs are found. In response to a new tax, he says, Nestlé would cancel a planned new plant, costing the state 250 jobs.

In Michigan, Nestlé is facing environmental challenges. Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation has filed a civil lawsuit to stop Nestlé from withdrawing 210 million gallons of water a year near the small town of Stanwood, arguing that groundwater levels are dropping dangerously; Nestlé says they are healthy. The state legislature is considering 16 bills to set limits on withdrawals of groundwater. In a similar battle over Florida’s springs, Nestlé has so far prevailed.

Why Nestle? Their tendency to elevate corporate water-taking targets - and profits - over the health of local watersheds puts them squarely at ground zero.

Will the company - long targeted by activists for predatory marketing of baby formula and its less-than-savory approach to rural communities - ever reform itself?

Given its recent efforts to greenwash its bottled water efforts, that seems unlikely.

• Student makes sculpture from waste water bottles: http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/32657/ #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Every kid learned the water cycle in school - that circular drawing that showed how water cycled through the environment (clouds, rain, rivers, ocean, vapor, clouds…).

The WaterWired blog recently featured a hilarious (or depressing, depending on your state of mind) version where all water leads to… money:

The blog’s worth a visit, and the sketch - crafted by hyrdrologist Kate Ely - should be turned in to a poster. It’s funny stuff.

• Westchester County water wins taste tests, so why politicians drinking bottled? http://tinyurl.com/6sotsd #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Another Canadian city ponders phasing out municipal use of bottled water: http://tinyurl.com/46bdbz #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

We’re tracking the bottled water industry and its attempts to revive its flagging fortunes. Sales have been battered by a bad economy and a rising tide of assaults on the bottled water market, and with profits at risk, we all knew the bottled water industry (and Nestle in particular) would get motivated.

That’s the subject of our next e-newsletter (sign up today!), but in this post, we’re looking at what’s happening in Europe - specifically the UK.

We found a brilliantly written piece about the bottled water industry in the Independent - a piece which just gets better and better as it unfolds. Here are a few excerpts, though the whole thing is worth a read:

Now, though, bottled water is in danger of being a has-been. After three decades of constant growth which saw sales rise by a factor of 100, from 20m litres a year in 1976 to 2,000m litres in 2006, the rise and fall of the sales chart is starting to resemble one of the mountains pictured in the advertising. Unless the slide is halted, bottled water will become history, a consumer fad that couldn’t live up to the hype. Unlikely, certainly, but the industry is spooked.

Mineral water is being assailed on all sides. Two years of extremely cloudy summers have hit demand; and now, the collapsing economy is causing consumers to question whether they need to spend £1 or £2 on something they can get for a fraction of the price at home. Most vexingly to its multinational cheerleaders, bottled water has become a symbol of environmental lunacy. How can one defend a product that is trucked hundreds or thousands of miles in plastic bottles when it gushes out of taps almost free? The Government has announced that it is banning mineral water from civil service meetings. Consumer groups call on diners to ask for tap – and millions are doing so. Mineral water is no longer cool; it’s dumb, bought by gullible clothes-horses who care more about their skin than the planet.

For two years the executives of the £2bn-a-year bottled water industry have sat tight, hoping things would improve, silently fuming as their product’s reputation dripped away. Now, they are striking back. Britain’s three biggest bottled-water companies, the Swiss food giant Nestlé, the French dairy corporation Danone and Highland Spring have founded a lobby group to restore its reputation. The trio met in Cambridge earlier this month to hatch a plan to restore mineral water to its rightful place in the public’s affections.

So far, it’s about what you expect. And sadly, so is the next paragraph:

In months to come, there will be lobbying from the Natural Hydration Council and a massive advertising campaign that will seek to re-educate the public about the benefits of bottled water. And it will get dirty. The bottled water camp is throwing mud at the tap water companies, with talk of chlorine, septic tanks, contamination and irresponsible leakage. The companies are fighting for their lives. And they complain about dark forces doing down their transparent, beautiful product. How did water get this murky? And should we be buying San Pellegrino or Badoit – or not?

What, exactly, does the writer mean about “it will get dirty”? This, apparently:

Danone’s solution to this is to tell the public that tap and bottled are not the same, even if they look the same. In his presentation to fellow industry members in Cambridge, Mr Krzyzaniak shows a picture of two identical looking glasses of water. “But are all waters created equal?” his presentation asks. “NO!” screams the graphic. There are pictures of the production of bottled and tap water. Bottled water drifts down from clouds over mountains, percolates through rocks and ends up in clear bottles. Tap water comes from groundwater, risking “contamination” from pesticides and fertilisers and a grey blot in the ground marked “septic tank”. A dissected water pipe shows it is all furred up inside, like an old kettle.

And this;

Almost three-quarters of British people (72 per cent) believe that tap water is of good quality and only 9 per cent believe that it’s bad quality. With good reason – the Drinking Water Inspectorate says that 99.96 per cent of UK water meets EU standards, unlike many parts of the developing world where drinking water is highly dangerous.

But these figures do not impress the bottled water industry: “99.96 per cent of your water being good enough is not good enough – 100 per cent of our water has to be good enough, because that 0.4 per cent, that fraction there, is not good enough. That should be challenged more,” says Montgomery.

A key issue here is “consistency”, adds Krzyzaniak. “Tap water changes from glass to glass,” he says, explaining that chlorine wears out over time, meaning that the quality can vary depending on how long it has been sitting in the pipe. “And it also depends on the source, depending on where you picked up along the Thames. Could you be near a treatment centre, could you be near a highly agricultural centre, could you be near a waste treatment centre?

It’s this level of fearmongering we can expect to eventually see here in North America; bottled water executives will conveniently forget the Environmental Working Group tests which showed that two of ten national brands of bottled water had illegal levels of contaminants (and all featured something that didn’t belong).

It’s clear that bottled water is not standing on the sidelines any longer, and the question is no longer “when” but “how to counter them once their considerable PR and marketing might is applied to the issue.”

• Milwaukee considering a bottled water ban? http://tinyurl.com/4ag4vu #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Bottled water industry representatives are suddenly cropping up all over the Internet, using their patented fuzzy logic to attack those who aren’t fans of bottled water.

It’s yet another sign that the gloves are off (as if Nestle Waters CEO Kim Jeffries’ statement slamming the quality of public water supplies wasn’t disgraceful proof enough), so the appearance of former Tobacco Institute spokesperson Tom Lauria (now shilling for the bottled water association [IBWA]) shouldn’t be a total surprise.

In this instance, Lauria went after an Ecopreneurist writer (Lauria’s text italicized): Bottled Water VIPs Think We Are Anti-Corporate, Capitalism-Haters : Ecopreneurist

A few days ago I posted about how the Director of Communications at Nestlé Waters North America took issue with a previous post about their CEO. This time, Tom Lauria, Vice President, Communications for the International Bottled Water Association responded:

…it’s the middle of day, and you’re running erands and you’re thirsty. You can buy a coffee or a cola but you want something healthy and refreshing, so you buy a nice cold bottle of water. Zero calories. Major hydration — it wakes you up! Any attempt by anyone to get people to drink less water is not in the public interest. Why are you targeting the packaged beverage with the smallest possible carbon fooprint? And it is clear people drink more water when they drink bottled water! At the end of day, there’s GREENSMOG…where anti-corporate types hide behind “saving the earth” to bash businesses because they hate capitalism.

Ahh, you nasty anti-Nestle activists - you’re not trying to protect your local water resources and local economies from a predatory multinational - you’re simply anti-corporate!

And shame on you Fryeburg citizens who forced poor Nestle to sue you five times because they wanted a 24/7 truck loading station in a residential area. You’re just anti-business!

And those opponents of Nestle proposed bottling plant in McCloud who woke up one morning to find their personal, private had been subpeonaed by Nestle - you’re just business bashers!

Of coure, after ten years spent spinning reality for the Tobacco Institute, Mr. Lauria’s perfectly capable of moving the bottled water debate far beyond the bounds of reality, and those with a minute or two to spare should consider heading to the discussion I referenced above and letting Mr. Lauria know what you think of the companies he represents.

And yes, expect to see a lot more of this cropping up.