Environmental Concern of Bottled Water
Bottled water is a huge environmental concern because of the billions of bottles that enter landfills. It is not just bottled water, but soda as well.
The chemicals in bottle seep into the environment
-- http://www.back2tap.com/resources/get-the-facts/bottled-water-consumption/
It is not just water bottles, plastics are pretty much the #1 environmental concern. We don't realize how much plastics wreak havoc on the planet.
When it doesn’t end up in our landfills, most plastic eventually makes its way to our oceans, where each year millions of fish, birds, and other animals die from plastic because they eat it or they get caught in it. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that more than 13,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating in every square kilometer of the ocean worldwide. The Surfrider Foundation estimates that more than half of the litter on beaches is plastic. Many researchers and environmental organizations now list plastic as the number one threat to our marine environments around the planet. In addition, chemicals in some plastics have been linked by researchers to a laundry list of diseases, including breast cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, liver abnormalities, and prostate cancer. It can seem a little overwhelming.
From: tp://www.kleankanteen.com/about/plastics.php
Rapidly Growing Industry
Bottled water is a fast growing industry. Per capita consumption of bottled water = 29.2 gallons (was 18.2 gallons a decade ago), revenue $21.7 billion
Anti Bottle Water Activism
-- There are lots of activist groups against bottled water. Quite a few Universities are banning bottled water vending machines because of these activists. This is really a bone-headed move.
-- It is not just bottled water that fills up land-fills. It is all the corn syrup based drinks (Coke, Pepsi) as well. They are immune from this activism.
-- Corn Syrup based drinks are far more harmful than drinking water. By taking away the choice of buying bottled water, people are forced to drink unhealthy stuff.
-- The largest bottled water companies are coke, pepsi and nestle. Bottled water costs the same as coke. Why so? Coke and Pepsi will make the same profit regardless of what you buy at the vending machine.
-- These people are not objecting to people drinking water. They are objecting to bottles filling up landfills. Unfortunately, banning bottled water is not gonna stop filling landfills. Instead of water, it will be coke bottles, but bottles nevertheless.
-- Water is healthy, the more people drink water instead of coke, the better. The health costs of coke are staggering, obesity is a national epidemic.
Activism is really bone-headed
-- You cant control behavior by reducing choice
-- People voted what they want, it is a fast growing industry
-- convenience trumps everything. Environment activism of drink from tap water, carry a refillable water bottle all times doesn't work well.
-- Violating the most important rule of "First, do no harm". With the bottled water activism, forcing people to consume corn syrup based drinks, which is unhealthy
The problem that needs to be solved
Why aren't water bottles recycled? If they are recycled, they won't end up in landfills and become an environmental concern.
How about a new business model?
I think there are better ways to solve this problem. Vending machines sell water/soda at $1.25 - $1.50 per bottle. Lets say we sell water bottle for 79 cents.
-- 99 cents per bottle
-- 19 cents refund per bottle. Refund is calculated as give back 5 bottles, get one free.
-- 25 cents bottle cost. This is cost with delivery at location. (this could go down)
-- 10 cents location rental (includes cooling, electricity cost). A thousand bottles would mean $100 for the location.
-- 10 cents for handler
-- 30 cents for in-app purchase, transaction cost. Work with Google that this amount goes towards Recycling Research.
-- will give about 4 cents per bottle to play with
Scale matters
-- A billion bottles/year = $300 million towards Recycling Research.
-- If Recycling Research does nothing else but Repurchase any bottle at 5 cents, that will be 6 billion bottles purchased. Total of 7 billion bottles out of landfills.
-- Of course, there could be many other solutions to this problem. Give out research grants of $5 million to about 60 Universities to work on this problem in many angles.
There is a distinct possibility of solving the problem of plastics in landfill in just a few short years.