Is credit crunch forcing people to change their drinking habits?
Will tapped out consumers go back to tap?
On June 17, Tapped Out Consumers Spurn Bottled Water (CBS News, AP) crunched the numbers and here they are: "Even a 24-pack of half-liter bottles at Costco Wholesale Corp., a
bargain at $6.97, would be consumed by one person in six days. That’s
more than $400 a year.
But water from the tap? A little more than 0.001 cent for a day’s
worth of water, based on averages from an American Water Works
Association survey – just about 51 cents a year."
Besides telling us that Sales of bottled water go flat as consumers return to the tap (Jenny Wiggins, FT) shows that being eco-friendly is now fashionable with Bottles tap into green aspirations.
In offices, one determined individual can bring change, Jenny remind us with the example of "Scott Graves, the man in charge of musicians at American record
label Epic Records, was aghast to see piles of Poland Spring water
bottles piled up in a corner of the company’s offices when he joined it
a year ago."I, like, tripped over this huge pile of Poland Spring bottles…I’m, like, what is going on here?"So
he got rid of them, and made the company (owned by Sony BMG) buy a
water filtration system instead. "I couldn’t be at this company if they
order Poland Spring every week." He also contacted a supplier of
reusable water bottles, the American group CamelBak, which sent out a
batch for free."
Swiss company Sigg with its stylish water bottles in no less than 144 styles makes tap water look cool and gets the message outfront as shown below.
In Australia, the coastal town of Manly (near Sydney) installed Public Filtered Fountains to Tackle Bottled Water (via PSFK, Sept 10).
Quenching my thirst for Green Day #44
Related: Ask for Tap (Water not Beer): Act Green in August (via Green Thing)
Last week on Green Day: Kayaking on the Thames River in London, Carbon Footprint Free, Clears your Head and Body
Check out the shortlisted designs for a ‘Carafe for London’ – similar to the initiative Paris ran a few years ago. Thames Water ran a competition that was open to London designers and challenged them to design a one-litre capacity glass carafe that was stylish and iconic but also met a sustainability criteria.
The shortlisted designs can be viewed at http://www.londonontap.org and the winning design will be mass manufactured next year for London’s thousands of restaurants, cafes and bars to serve customers tap water.
I have my favourite design already!