The PR Environment
Within arm’s reach of where I write this is my water bottle. Although it is labeled “Poland Spring,” it no longer contains Poland Spring water, but ordinary tap water—which I gather is all it originally contained. The fact that most bottled water, despite some suggestive advertising, is no more pure or healthy than tap water—sometimes measurably less so, depending on the brand and your public health system—is no longer news. So widespread is this knowledge that Poland Spring no longer even bothers trying to tell you it compares favorably with tap water on its own label.
This is not to say that they aren’t still misrepresenting themselves as healthful. Don’t be silly. They’re just going about it in a more roundabout fashion. In place of the text that once told you how much better bottled water is for the purity of your precious bodily fluids, there is now eco-friendly copy:
“Our bottle looks and feels different because it is purposely designed with an average of 30% less plastic* to be easier on the environment. We can all make a difference, please recycle.”
Despite my boundless trust in my fellow man and especially in corporate ethics, I had to doubt this claim. For starters, putting 30% less plastic in their bottles saves Poland Spring a small fraction of their production costs, and probably another fraction of related costs like cleanup. Not a lot, I’m sure, but still, a fraction of a penny per bottle is still real money given enough volume. Call me a skeptic, but I think the prospect of shaving a couple million from annual production costs, and not a desire to go easy on the environment, is behind the decision.
More to the point, if you look the bottle over, you’ll notice that the design includes some odd ridges and a low waist, rather similar to what you’d see on a Coke bottle. As far as I can tell, they serve no purpose beyond esthetics and marketing, the need to “brand” the product by bottle shape as well as logo, label color, font, and so on. A couple small ridges might help someone grip the bottle, but this swoopy bottle molding goes well beyond that useful minimum. I don’t have any sensitive measuring devices on hand, but judging by careful eyeballing of the bottle’s outline and a quick bit of calculus, I estimate that removing, or even reducing, those unnecessary ridges might save another two percent of the plastic required to make that bottle. If the design is intended to save Mother Nature, why not remove them?
If they really wanted to be eco-friendly about it, Poland Spring could pare the plastic use down even further by shaping the bottle like a sphere, the shape with the smallest surface-to-volume ratio. That would give you maximum interior (water) for minimum surface (plastic container). A true sphere might present other problems, I suppose—it could be difficult to handle, or troublesome to pack for shipping—but any move towards a spherical shape, like making the rough cylinder of the bottle more squat and wide, would help. No matter how you cut it, concavities like that low-slung waist are pure waste material: spreading them out to meet the cylindrical space defining the bottle’s minimum convex outline would allow the bottle to hold more water (or rather, allow the manufacturer to shorten the bottle, and thus use less plastic, while holding just as much water).
Did you notice the asterisk on that 30% claim? I sure did. I had to hunt around to find the footnote, because it’s in smaller font, in an entirely different section of the label. It doesn’t do nearly so much for the old PR image, after all. It reads: “*Versus comparable size, leading beverage brands.” Not leading water brands, mind you, but leading beverage brands, that is to say, compared to one-liter bottles of soda pop.
Now there’s a problem with this comparison, in that pop bottles have to contend with the pressure of carbonation. I buy bottled water once every few month—for the bottle, not the water. The one-liter bottle is a handy way to measure my water intake for medical reasons, and after several months’ use, they start to get a cruddy buildup inside, despite washing. Occasionally, I’ll put something other than water, like pop, in my water bottle. And when I do, the carbonation causes the walls of the bottle to bulge out so hard that the little cup-shaped bottom pops outward and cause the bottle to wobble or even topple over. Just can’t take the pressure. Pop bottles use more plastic because they have to, in order to hold the contents in. So Poland Spring hasn’t designed its bottle to use 30% less plastic than other water bottles; it’s designed its bottle to use 30% less plastic than something completely irrelevant, like boasting they cost less than an aircraft carrier. They use just as much plastic as any bottled water company; they just want you to think you’re supporting the environment by buying their product because they use less plastic. That boosts sales, and to hell with the actual environment.
Of course, if you’re really inspired by the label, if you really want to cut down on plastic use to be easier on the environment, you can. Just stop getting the bottles entirely. Just go straight to your own tap. I’m sure the ecologically-minded folks at Poland Springs would be delighted with your commitment.