Environmentalists have long pointed to the numbers to
explain their alarm and opposition to the bottled water industry. Taken as a
whole, bottling water in plastic containers releases 2.5 million tons of carbon
into the atmosphere every year.
Producing just one-year’s supply of bottled water means
burning 17 million barrels of oil. That’s enough fuel to power 1.3 million cars
for a year. Then there’s the pollution problem. The majority of plastic bottles
used for water are recycled but millions still end up in landfills or litter
the landscape. Plastic bottles are floating in the oceans and running down
rivers.
All this and many point out that, just a few years ago,
buying water in a plastic bottle seemed absurd considering that most people
already have access to water from a tap. In the past, if they wanted to bring
water with them, they filled a Thermos, canteen or kitchen bottle.
There are other environmental issues as well, such as major
corporations being accused of pumping public-land aquifers to dangerously low
levels.
That’s why it’s surprising that a new company that is
earning high praise from environmentalists is a bottled water company. In fact,
this firm is being held up as a role model for how to operate an eco-friendly
sustainable business.
The company is Waiakea
Hawaiian Volcanic Bottled Water. It’s the brainchild of Ryan Emmons, a
young entrepreneur who was determined to build a bottled water company that
solved every negative environmental problem associated with the industry.
Emmons was well aware of the dismal reputation of bottled water – but he firmly
believed he could build a sustainable brand and create a model that would make
bottled water the perfect eco-friendly operation.
Doing so meant solving the key problems. The first was the
plastics issue. For the first time ever, Waiakea Water is selling its product
in a bottle that is a cutting-edge material that looks and feels like plastic
but is actually a highly biodegradable material that will dissolve completely –
leaving no waste behind — if it is never turned in for recycling.
The bottle was developed by Manuel Rendon, a chemical
processing engineer who founded a company called TimePlast. He spent years
conducting experiments and with more than a thousand trials to develop a
plastic bottle that could biodegrade at room temperature. Waiakea is the first
bottled water company to adopt the Timeplast bottle.
Other issued needed to be addressed as well – such as the
fuel it takes to ship millions of bottles of water from the factory to store
shelves. Waiakea accomplishes this through advanced logistics techniques which
leverage empty cargo spaces in ships and truck.
It also aggressively pursued carbon offset activities to
balance out the energy it does use by creating natural green infrastructures in
the form of planting millions of trees to act as greenhouse gas-absorbing
agents.
Waiakea Water does more. It has partnered
with the nonprofit Pump Aid to help it supply freshwater resources to areas
in the world where people are suffering from a lack of clean water.
