by Michael Smith
Ethical bottled water must be the biggest oxymoron of our time. Bottled water simply can never be ethical regardless of whatever and whichever cause it may be meant to help and aid. Bottled water is unethical, period!
I know of more than one bottled water company that claims “ethical” status because a percentage of its profits from the sale of the bottles of water is used in water projects in India and elsewhere in the Third World, to provide, say, clean water wells for villages and such. The cause supported with however much of the profits still does not make water, whether spring or even tap, sold in a plastic bottle “ethical”. That is the short and long of it. In other words, bottled water cannot be “ethical” regardless of what cause it might support.
I do not care who runs those water companies and why and what causes are supported from the sale of the water in bottles, nor do I care how many awards those people may have been given. Bottled water simply is NOT ethical. End of message! What part of the word “not” is so difficult to understand?
None of those ventures I could ever see myself supporting simply because, in my opinion, water put into a plastic bottle and then sold simply is not, as I said before, ethical.
“We Want Tap”, on the other hand, is a campaign and cause that has my wholehearted support.
You want to do something ethical about water? Sell water bottles and encourage people to use tap water – filtered if need. That is ethical and if you want to go that step further then you can use part of the profits from the sale of the water bottles for a cause, such as proving potable water for villagers in India, or such.
“Bottles for a Cause”, now there is a title for a campaign.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
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Ethical bottled water – a contradiction in terms
