Culligan Water

SUNDAY APRIL 12, 2009

Australians spent more than half a billion dollars on bottled water last year, paying more for water than they did for petrol. Why pay for water when its available for free?

Charles Wooley investigated the bottled water industry asking this question and others for 60 Minutes.

Jon Dee, Founder of Planet Ark states, “For Australians, of all people in the world, to be spending half a billion dollars buying 600 million litres of bottled water every year, it makes no sense. The simple fact is we’ve been conned by the bottled water industry and they’re laughing all the way to the bank.”

So why do we pay for bottled water, when Australia has some of the best, and purest, water in the world? Is it just clever and audacious marketing? Find out more by reading the transcript of watching the full 60 Minutes Episode here.

What you can do
There is not need to add to the needless and unnecessary waste by buying bottled water. A household of four that consumes an average of one hundred and fifty 600 ml bottles of water a year would save the 18 litres of oil and 600 litres of water used for manufacturing and transporting the bottles, over 2kg of plastic and 8.4kg of carbon emissions that are produced during the manufacturing process.

Its so simple to “refill, reuse, recycle” by combining a refillable water bottle with your home or office water filter. Simple ways we can make a difference include:

• Install a water filter at the source (kitchen taps at home or at the office, or freestanding water chillers at the office).
• Refill your water bottle at the tap rather than buying a new one.
• Buy large size containers (2 litres) for juices, soda, and water, rather than single serving sizes.
• If you have a choice, buy beverages in refillable (rather than single use) recyclable bottles.
• Recycle! Don’t throw away your bottles – use recycling bins found in public places like malls or airports, and always recycle at home.
• If there’s no recycling program in your workplace or apartment building, organise one.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 4:45 am and is filed under Environment, From the Water Cooler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.