© ShutterstockOf the billions of plastic water bottles sold each year, the majority don’t end up being recycled. Those single-serving bottles, also known as PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles because of the kind of resin they’re made with, are recycled at a rate of about 31 percent in the U.S. The other 69 percent end up in landfills or as litter.
And when the company's CEO Tim Brown was asked on a radio program if Nestlé would stop bottling water in the Golden State, he replied, "Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would." That's because bottled water is big business, even in a country where most people have clean, safe tap water readily and cheaply available. (Although it should be noted that Starbucks agreed to stop sourcing and manufacturing their Ethos brand water in California after being drought-shamed.)
Profits made by the industry are much to the chagrin of nonprofits like Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a corporate watchdog and Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group, both of which have waged campaigns against the bottled water industry for years. But representatives from both organizations say they've won key fights against the industry in the last 10 years and have helped shift people's consciousness on the issue.
Comment: Ditch Bottled Water and watchTapped, a film that examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil.