Here’s an article released today called Bottled Water: The new public enemy #1.  It talks about the rash of anti-bottled water stories hitting the news the last few months, pushed mainly by environmentalists who are upset by how much waste is produced throwing those bottles away.

First, the bottled water sitting on my desk (refilled from yesterday I might add) has a recycling symbol on it signifying that it’s a PET bottle.  1.5 million tons of which are recycled each year.  Rather than picking on people for actually making a healthier beverage choice at the store than soft drinks, why not concentrate on getting more people to recycle?

And speaking of soft drinks, I always seem to read these articles and come away with more questions than answers.  If bottled water use is on the rise, does that mean that soft drink or other beverage consumption is declining?  You can say that “sales are growing 10% annually” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of empty plastic bottles is growing at all.  Isn’t that a somewhat important fact for the article?

The energy drink market has grown by over 50% over the last 5 years.  Where is the outcry about all the plastic and metal thrown out due to that??  Hmm??