Tapped-Out Consumers Ditching Bottled Water...
- From: "Gregory Morrow" <interpress@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:29:21 -0500
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25211545
Feeling thrifty, the thirsty reach for tap water
Environmental concerns also play a role in bottled water slowdown
The Associated Press
updated 4:14 p.m. CT, Tues., June. 17, 2008
Tap water is making a comeback.
"With a day's worth of bottled water - the recommended 64 ounces - costing
hundreds to thousands of dollars a year depending on the brand, more people
are opting to slurp water that comes straight from the sink.
The lousy economy may be accomplishing what environmentalists have been
trying to do for years - wean people off the disposable plastic bottles of
water that were sold as stylish, portable, healthier and safer than water
from the tap.
Heather Kennedy, 33, an office administrator from Austin, Texas, said she
used to drink a lot of bottled water but now tries to drink exclusively tap
water.
"I feel that (bottled water) is a rip-off," she said in an e-mail. "It is
not a better or healthier product than the water that comes out of my tap.
It is absurd to pay so much extra for it."
Measured in 700-milliliter bottles of Poland Spring, a daily intake of water
would cost $4.41, based on prices at a CVS drugstore in New York. Or $6.36
in 20-ounce bottles of Dasani. By half-liters of Evian, that'll be $6.76,
please. Which adds up to thousands a year.
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.
U.S. consumers spent $16.8 billion on bottled water in 2007, according to
the trade publication Beverage Digest. That's up 12 percent from the year
before - but it's the slowest growth rate since the early 1990s, said editor
John Sicher.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the biggest bottler of Coca-Cola Co.'s Dasani,
recently cut its outlook for the quarter, saying the weak North American
economy is hurting sales of bottled water and soda - especially the 20-ounce
single serving sizes consumers had been buying at gas stations.
"They're not walking in and spending a dollar plus for a 20-ounce bottle of
water," said beverage analyst William Pecoriello at Morgan Stanley. Flavored
and "enhanced" waters like vitamin drinks are also eating into plain bottled
water's market share.
Pecoriello said Americans' concern about the environment was also a factor,
driven by campaigns against the use of oil in making and transporting the
bottles, the waste they create and the notion of paying for what is
essentially free.
The Tappening Project, which promotes tap water in the U.S. as clean, safe
and more eco-friendly than bottled water, launched a new ad campaign in May.
The company has also sold more than 200,000 reusable hard plastic and
stainless steel bottles since last November.
Linda Schiffman, 56, a recent retiree from Lexington, Mass., bought two
metal bottles at $14.50 each for herself and her daughter from Corporate
Accountability, a consumer advocate group, after she swore off buying cases
of bottled water from Costco.
"I've been doing a lot of cost-cutting since I retired," said Schiffman, a
former middle-school guidance counselor. "Additionally, I started feeling
like this was a big waste environmentally."
Aware of those concerns, some bottled water makers are trying to address the
issue.
Nestle says all its half-liter bottles now come in an "eco-shape" that
contains 30 percent less plastic than the average bottle, and it has pared
back other packaging. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have also cut down on the amount
of plastic used in their bottles.
While it is difficult to track rates of tap water use, sales of faucet
accessories are booming.
Brita tap water purification products made by Clorox Co. reported
double-digit volume and sales growth in May and have seen three straight
quarters of strong growth.
Robin Jaeger of Needham, Mass., fills her kids' reusable bottles with water
from the house's faucet. But she doesn't use water straight from the tap.
"My kids have come to the conclusion that any water that's not filtered
doesn't taste good," she said.
Her reverse-osmosis filter system costs about $200 every 18 months for
maintenance - still cheaper than buying by the bottle.
Kennedy, the tap convert from Texas, has a filter built into her
refrigerator. She also recently bought a reusable aluminum bottle made by
Sigg, a Swiss company which has stopped selling its $19.99 metal bottles
from its Web site, saying demand has swamped its supply.
While Brita is the dominant player in water filtration, according to
Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz, sales of P&G's Pur water filtration
systems are also growing. Sales from the Pur line have increased almost
every month since mid-2007, said Bruce Letz, its brand manager. He declined
to give sales figures but said "the water filtration category is expanding
very rapidly."
"There's a backlash against the plastic water bottle," Schmitz said.
Cities and businesses, big to small, have also gotten in on the action.
Marriott International Inc. distributed free refillable water bottles and
coffee mugs to the 3,500 employees at its corporate offices in Bethesda,
Md., and installed multiple water filters on every floor. The Chez Panisse
restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., got rid of bottled still water in the summer
of 2006 and started sparkling its own water in early 2007.
"Does it make sense to bottle water in Italy, trek it to a port, ship it all
the way over here, then trek it to our restaurant?" said Chez Panisse
general manager Mike Kossa-Rienzi. "We were going through 25,000 bottles a
year. ... Someone has to end up recycling them."
Many cities, including New York, have enacted pro-tap campaigns, and some
have stopped providing disposable water bottles for government employees.
Chicago started a 5-cent tax on plastic water bottles in January. San
Francisco has done away with deliveries of water jugs for office use,
instead installing filters and bottle-less dispensers, and banned the
purchase of single-serving bottles by city employees with municipal funds.
The city has already cut its government water budget in half, to $250,000 a
year, said Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities
Commission.
"It's becoming chic to say, 'Oh no, I don't drink bottled water, I'll have
tap water,' " he said..."
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