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We should talk about the companies subverting water for bottling water, almond and avocado operations
by ashneo76 5y ago
We should talk about the companies subverting water for bottling water, almond and avocado operations
- mapster 5y agoThe floor is yours senator
- prestigious 5y agoI don’t understand this internet obsession with bottling water. Surely under the worst drought conditions bottling water has to be the very last thing to stop. Literally water for humans to drink has to be a top priority.
- Finnucane 5y agoThe business model of the bottled water industry is to take public water from limited local supplies and then distribute it globally, obviously at a significant profit to themselves, regardless of the actual need for that water.
- fb13 5y agoFrom what I understand, it's the opposite. I cannot get the same bottled water in the southeast as in the northeast, because it's bottled locally.
- mc32 5y agoOh, they just mad cuz the companies get a concession for cheap. That is it.
- triceratops 5y agoIs that not a valid thing to be angry about?
- mc32 5y agoSure. Then just say I’m mad because these water bottling companies get the water concessions for cheap (and I don’t), instead of some other made up reason that might be less honest but a more sympathetic argument.
- triceratops 5y agoArguably the reason they bottle the water is because of the cheap concessions. Without those, their profit margins are a lot slimmer and maybe the industry is much smaller, leaving more water out of bottles.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThey're selling the cheapest commodity in the world for more than the price of gasoline. Even with smaller margins they're still making money hand over fist.
- darig 5y agoI guess free is cheap...
- triceratops 5y agoIt can be both. Consider "brand name" waters such as Voss or Perrier or S Pellegrino.
- fb13 5y agoI thought about mentioning those companies, but I considered them to be too small of a market comparatively. For example, almost everyone buys 12-24 packs of their semi-locally bottled water, including national brands Dasani & aquafina that come from local bottling companies. I can't talk about the water issues in Fiji and France, but my guess is that it's <1% the total volume of bottled water consumed in any given area (outside LA or NYC of course).
- fullstop 5y agoSort-of related, but my local water supply is used for bottled water. They were drilling a new well which was not completed on time, but had already signed an agreement with the company for water rights. I was unable to wash my car, etc, but they could happily bottle water. We have a lot of limestone here, so our water is pretty good but has significant mineral content. Without a water softener my faucets would be ruined within years, caked full of minerals.
- specialist 5y agoDon't forget the waste. It takes ~3 units of water to bottle 1 unit. To say nothing of the carbon impact with packaging, shipping, disposal. To say nothing of the pollution with microplastics and estrogenics. Ad nauseum.
- Frost1x 5y agoGlobally is the key word here. I'm not familiar with bottling industries in the south west, but in general, if you're taking a scarce resource from a locality and distributing it elsewhere, it should be clear how that can quickly become problematic. It's more of an issue if that scarce resource is as fundamental to survival like water. Ideally, the SW would be importing bottled water, not exporting water, because it's not something they have in abundance. If there are large commercial operations exporting water, they should be the first to be cut off from these operations. That seems very unlikely it would be permitted though. Personally, I've never wanted to live in this area (or at least make a large investment in a home/property) due to the scarcity of water coupled with growth. Nothing against the region, just seems like an unecessarily impractical region to live due to environmental factors and the climate models I've seen, at least for my comfort levels.
- throwaway894345 5y agoThere's plenty of drinking water if states manage their water sustainably. The biggest draw on water in most places is agriculture, not drinking water. There's no reason to pump aquifers dry and then use energy to transport water from elsewhere.
- triceratops 5y ago"Water for humans to drink" comes from the faucet. The bottled water industry shouldn't exist at all, other than as a niche product for areas hit by natural disasters, remote construction or work sites, and so on.
- twiddling 5y agoThen the negative externalities should be properly priced in.
- derg 5y agowe all know that rarely if ever happens. market don't care.
- throwaway894345 5y agoThat's what "pricing in the negative externality" means: making the market care.
- derg 5y agoand who exactly is doing the pricing here then?
- throwaway894345 5y agogovernment, for example, by taxing the externality
- derg 5y agoso it's not the market naturally pricing it in then is it?
- throwaway894345 5y agoNo, and it couldn't be, which the point that you seem to be circling. Markets aren't self-governing--they don't set the rules that they abide by (including which externalities are priced in and which aren't)--that's a function of government.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoIt's exploitation of under-developed regions with ridiculous profit margins: Free water, cents for billions of PET bootles, packaged and sold for dollars. This environmental impact of plastic and indigenous water resource impact is completely avoidable. [0][1][2][3] [0] https://www.salon.com/2017/09/16/coca-cola-sucks-wells-dry-in-chiapas-forcing-residents-to-buy-water_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2017/09/16/coca-cola-sucks-wells-dry-i... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/04/ontario-six-nations-nestle-running-water https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/04/ontario-six-n... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nestle-200-dollars-water-plant-evart-michigan-flint-water-crisis-tap-water-a7975511.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nestle-200... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/02/coca-cola-increased-its-production-of-plastic-bottles-by-a-billion-last-year-say-greenpeace https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/02/coca-col...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thehappypm 5y agoI'm not sure I understand the word "subverting" here, those uses are for human consumption directly and food production, those feel pretty legitimate. Arguing against grassy lawns, I can see.
- throwaway894345 5y agoYou can import food grown elsewhere; it's not sustainable to water-intensive food locally. Bottled water is an inefficient and carbon-intensive solution for drinking water--drink from the tap.
- thehappypm 5y agoStill, why the term "subverting"?
- throwaway894345 5y agoI'm not the OP, but I assume it's an error and it should be "diverting", perhaps with negative connotations
- strken 5y agoCan you put numbers on all those industries? I was under the impression that alfalfa for cattle feed was the most egregious waster of water on the west coast of the US, based on articles like https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-05-26/why-they-grow-thirsty-alfalfa-in-parched-california https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-05-26/why-th... and the well-known dairy subsidies, but I haven't looked at it in the last five years.
- refurb 5y ago“Subverting”?
- ip26 5y agoYes, let’s talk about almonds. That way we can avoid talking about beef. https://www.businessinsider.com/real-villain-in-the-california-drought-isnt-almonds--its-red-meat-2015-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/real-villain-in-the-californ...
- falcolas 5y agoWhataboutism. Yes, beef needs to be addressed. But so do almonds and bottled water and and and…
- elevation 5y agoThe article's callout of alfalfa is an exception to the rule. Beef cattle eat a lot of human-inedible silage (byproducts of raising corn and soybeans) and for economic reasons the land they graze is typically non-arable land. Beef is a natural way for humans to benefit from the inedible byproducts of corn and soybean operations. Re: water, typical cattle operations supply natural rainfall (gathered in ponds) and not irrigated, meaning they return the moisture they consume to the soil along with some nitrates which fertilize the plants they graze -- they do not somehow retain 106 gallons of water per pound of meat. If you don't live in a desert, cattle are a beneficial part of the ecosystem as they extract human-edible calories from non-arable land. During drought, irrigation and supplements like alfalfa become necessary to keep a herd alive, but the problem isn't the cattle -- it's the drought.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoDrive the five and its not marginal land being grazed for cattle. These are factory feedlot operations, not bucolic rangeland operations with 1500 head on 150k acres.