Are we so easy to fool?

 

I don't know about you but were not impressed with the current re branding and marketing some water bottlers are doing and what with their on trend 'fully recyclable' claims make me scream, of course its probably totally legal to say things like ‘straight from the rocks or streams way underground and natures own’ which may well be a description of the way its sourced and a play on words although maybe its not all as obvious as it looks as I see statistics on bottled water state a ridiculous 64% (see https://www.ecowatch.com/bottled-water-sources-tap-2537510642.html) of the darn stuff comes from…. Yep you guessed it…. the municipal tap water system. Obviously they filter it or something but still, come on! 

Not to put too fine a point on it effectively when bottlers are sourcing their water surely this is pumped from the ground and is a public product therefore reducing this national resource for the rest of us then selling it back to us, was it not always ours to begin with? I hear you say it cannot be that much but hold on, last year bottled water was sold JUST IN THE UK to an unbelievable volume of 4.267 billion litres, an increase of 7% on the previous year and thats not nothing, its about 200ml each every day of the year assuming our current population is around 60 million, its ridiculous in our times  Re our numbers feel free to do your own more accurate numbers and get the exact day to day current picture, were not here to argue stats just to get the points over so we can act accordingly and as we feel fit. (see https://www.packaging-gateway.com/news/uk-bottled-water-sales-four-billion/)

Now, lets get this straight we are NOT saying adverting is misleading BUT, and its a massive BUT, are we simply falling for these brilliant marketing campaigns and if we are at what cost?

Without getting too hung up on water adverts maybe we need to look at what were doing and why? We all need water but our tap water ranks amongst the best in the world, trip savvy rates us as 7th (see https://www.tripsavvy.com/the-worlds-cleanest-tap-water-4159592), certainly it is beautiful in my part of the country (the North East) and as I travel around I find nothing but a glowing report.

Now when we realise the massive ecological issues that go alongside our passion to buy overly  priced water from a fancy plastic single use bottle, that I may remind you makes a horrible crackly sound as you drink it, does not keep it cold for any reasonable time, is bad for our environment as we are simply not set up to handle the things and are very very expensive against tap water and we can only think these very strong adverts are working a treat but not necessarily for us all :(

To be fair to the adverts tend to look great, they appear to be fully in harness with nature and there simply bringing you the best water for your pleasure but we take issue with the way they bring the product to us in these single use plastic bottles, we just don’t need them and me for one don’t want them.

So why don’t the suppliers of mineral water look to supply by installing water fountains throughout the country where we can either pay for the pleasure of their ‘superior’ product or simply refill at the tap?

Were all in this together, we love the water business and feel it needs to build against even more terrifying sugary drinks yet again in single use plastic!!

So, whats to be done? I say we boycott single use plastic bottles, sorry to be so strong but I really am at a loss of what else we can do, and get our own reusable water bottle, buy a good one ( the one below is https://foshbottle.com/products/vital-clownfish ) and make it a pleasure to use. When the water suppliers feel they want to join in let them put their products up against our highly praised tap water and if customers want to pay the extra feel free. Water is free in my world, I understand everyone else wants to take a bite out of it but it flows freely, maybe we should make the connection of freely flowing water and a free to use water bottle, it makes an awful lot of common sense!

 

For me I know where my money is going but then again I am a bit of a realist

FOSH

For more information about the FOSH range of water bottles and Beakers see www.foshbottle.com

Picture https://foshbottle.com/products/vital-clownfish