One of the ways in which Indian urbanites can maintain their intake of fluids is through bottled water. India is the country with the highest growth rate in bottle water sales in the world, according to the Earth Policy Instituted based in the U.S. This is despite the fact that bottled water is often simply filtered tap water and can cost up to 10,000 times more. Entrepreneurs want to make sure their bottled water companies are garnering sales from India’s large affluent business sectors. Various market practices, including targeting commercials and pursuing sales leads, has made the search for bottled water customers lively and spirited.
Of course, no good thing is free, and water bottling plants such as the Coca Cola one have affected the water supply of 50 surrounding villages. However, Coke undertook its own studies and found itself blameless. There will always be environmental and human rights activists who will protest against the likes of Coke, Pepsi, Nestles and Danone for diverting water from scarce areas.
The key thing to remember that fully 60 percent of bottled water actually derives from springs and other natural sources. The remaining 40 percent flows from the tap. Often, bottled tap water is fortified with some natural minerals to import a pleasant fresh taste.
One must also account for the thousands of jobs in the plastic industry that benefit from the production of water bottles. Like the pear pad. In the U.S. alone, businessmen turn 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil into plastic water bottles. For thirsty Indians, this is a far better use of the same amount of petroleum that would fuel 100,000 cars annually. Luckily, the plastics companies need not worry about recycling, as over 90 percent of water bottles are used once and then spend the next 1000 years in a dump.
Petroleum companies are double winners. They provide the chemicals to the plastics industries to fill our insatiable need for plastic water bottle. Then, the oil companies benefit again by shipping the millions of pallets of bottled water around the world on oil-burning cargo ships. The synergies of production are fantastic. It’s no wonder that governments like India are slow to address water problems with increased tap water supplies, when the obvious answer is to encourage citizens to buy their tap water in bottles. For convenience, an on-the-go country like India is merely taking advantage of ensuring quick access to water of a consistent quality, even during droughts. It is a win-win situation.