The environment is on everyone’s mind—no question. And the recent ban of using tax dollars to purchase bottled water by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has got people across the nation thinking even more.

In the executive directive dated June 21, 2007, signed by Newsom, it reports that it takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to supply the amount of bottled water purchases made in one year by American consumers, according to the Container Recycling Institute. That translates into 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. The Directive goes on to point out that more than 1 billion plastic water bottles end up in California’s landfills each year, requiring 1,000 years to biodegrade, leaking toxic additives such as phthalates into the groundwater.

With those statistics, other cities have tapped into the crusade against bottled water including Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who asked city employees to forgo their use of bottled water, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, and other cities including Los Angeles and Ann Abor, MI, which has banned the sale of bottled water at city-sponsored events. Individual companies also are taking a stance. Trendy restaurants, for example, in Boston, San Francisco and New York have stopped serving bottled water.

This issue was brought to the table at the US Conference of Mayors on June 25 where Resolution 90 was passed issuing the Conference of Mayors to conduct a detailed study of the importance of municipal water and the importance of bottled water on municipal waste.

Even New York City, where you can find someone selling bottled water from a cooler for $1 at almost every corner, has launched an ad campaign promoting its tap water—considered among the highest quality across the country.
Tony Winnicker, spokesperson, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, is sure to point out that the tap water in San Francisco is also of high caliber--he boasts that the city has been exempt from filtering its water by the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) because of its pristine water source, which is snowmelt stored in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

"I think that these sort of actions are setting up, unnecessarily, a tap water vs. bottled water debate," says Joe Doss, president, International Bottled Water Association (IBWA). "Really, consumers are not choosing and replacing tap water with bottled water. They have many other beverages to choose from in the market place and some may choose to drink both bottled water and tap water depending on the circumstances."

Portability is one circumstance. In San Francisco, Winnicker explains that thousands of stainless steel water bottles are being distributed to city employees and residents who are being encouraged to fill up before leaving their home or workplace.

"There are going to be some situations," adds Winnicker, "where people are out in remote locations and they don’t have access to potable water. In some cases pre-packaged water will be appropriate and is necessary. We are not draconian about it, but where you can consume cheaper, more sustainable, high-quality tap water, than when it comes to city tax dollars, the mayor believes you should." The directive notes that in San Francisco, for the same price of one gallon of bottled water, residents could purchase 1,000 gallons of tap water.

And according to Winnicker, city employees are behind the mayor. In San Francisco, the ban took effect as of July 1 and as of Sept. 30 city departments or agencies will begin to receive bottle-less water dispensers, with hot- and cold-water dispensers, that use reservoir supplied water. The bottle-less water dispensers are filtered.
"Bottled water is a safe, healthy, refreshing beverage that consumers are using to hydrate and that nothing should be done to discourage that," says Doss, adding that plastic bottled water should not be the only target when addressing the environmental impact of plastic packaged goods. "Any effort to reduce the environmental impact of packaging must focus on all consumer goods and not just target bottled water. Think of the thousands of other food and beverage products that come from all different parts of the world."

Winnacker’s response: "However, you can’t turn on you faucet and get Coca-Cola." He adds, "It is not a crusade against bottled water companies per se," says Winnicker. "It is a crusade for saving tax dollars and for reducing the pretty terrible impact of all of these plastic bottles, both the production of them and the transportation of them, and the difficulties of disposing of them instead."

But the bottled water industry is doing its part in trying to reduce its environmental footprint. Besides pointing out that bottled water containers are 100 percent recyclable, Doss added that most of the larger plastic bottles used for the home or office water coolers are used sanitized and reused dozens of times before they then are removed from the market place and recycled. Also, the IBWA is an active supporter of comprehensive curbside recycling programs and a founding member of the National Recycling Partnership.

In about four cities throughout the United States, the IBWA is working on pilot programs to try new and innovative approaches to increase the recycling rate. Also, bottled water companies themselves are taking actions to reduce their environmental impact, relays Doss.

NWNA CEO Kim Jeffery urges the industry to reduce its environmental footprint.