The Daily Background

I saw this ad on the side of a bus stop here in Chicago the other day. It’s promoting Fiji Water, the company ships tons of normal water almost ten thousand miles for Americans to consume, using massive amounts of CO2. In environmental circles, Fiji Water is notorious for being one of the absolute worst bottled water companies (which is somewhat like saying it’s one of the absolute worst companies that is in the business of killing puppies, as the bottled water industry is pretty awful itself). Wikipedia explains:

Fiji Water has been criticized for the environmental costs embedded in each bottle. The production plant runs on diesel fuel, 24 hours a day[3]. The high-grade plastic used to make the bottles is transported from China to Fiji, and then (full of water) to the United States. A 1 liter bottle of Fiji Water contaminates 6.74 liters of water to stretch-blow mold the plastic, burns fossil fuel to transport plastics from China and full bottles to the U.S., and produces 0.25 kg of greenhouse emissions.

Here’s a more detailed mathematical breakdown of how bad it is for the environment to ship the custom-made bottles from China to Fiji, then fill them with water and then ship them to the US for consumption.

So, what’s up with Fiji’s new environmental advertising campaign just glorified greenwashing? The company says it is trying to be more environmentally friendly, but it’s a tough situation when your entire business is built on an inherently environmentally irresponsible idea: shipping bottled water thousands of miles from source to consumer.

Some googling reveals more info on Fiji’s recent environmental marketing efforts. Food & Water Watch opines:

While Fiji’s Artisanal Water’s commitment to reducing their packaging, investing in rainforest renewal and reducing their carbon emissions may be applauded by some, these measures are not enough to make them a green company. By definition, bottled water is simply not an environmentally friendly product.

When companies package and sell water, they take a natural resource that falls freely from the sky from communities that need it, stick it in plastic bottles (made from oil, of course), and ship it across the globe to sell it for hundreds, sometimes thousands of times its actual value. And while Fiji and its cohorts can encourage consumers to recycle, the fact of the matter is that 86% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the trash, instead of being recycled.

PublicRadio.org has more information, including a “Fiji by the numbers” list.

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