The Overconsumption of Bottled Water
Marketing 495
Casey Courneen, Grant Kocher, Shana Merkle, Jamison Mycyk, and Hannah Neckers
Introduction
The societal problem causing a plethora of environmental issues is none other than excessive use
of bottled water, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. When taking a deeper
look in the financial statistics associated with disposable bottled water and the production that
goes into making them, the statistics have be gradually increasing over the past five years. Last
year in the United States alone, Americans spent a combined $11.8 billion on water bottles,
while global sales reached $60 billion. This is more than a 6% increase in total water bottle sales,
when compared to sales in 2012. When looking into further detail on how much bottled water
each individual annually consumes, statistics indicate that 167 bottles of water, totaling 30.8
gallons are consumed per person. This results in more than a 6% increase from the previous year
and is the number one most consumed beverage in the United States. Once a water bottle is
discarded, it takes approximately 1,000 years for it to biodegrade, assuming it is disposed of
properly. When looking into statistics about water bottles and landfills; there are over two
million pounds of water bottles just in U.S. landfills. Only 20% of disposable water bottles are
recycled, leaving the left over 80% ending up in landfills.
Resources used from the manufacturing and distribution of bottled water include excess use of
oil, which amounts to 1.5 million barrels of oil used in the U.S. alone. When looking at this
phenomenon globally, this number increases to 17 million barrels used per year. This is also
excluding the negative effects of greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide, fossil fuels and emissions
involved throughout this process from start-to-finish. When considering the amount of water
used in producing bottled water, it takes approximately three liters of tap water to simply make
just one liter of bottled water.
Bottled Water in Relation to the Triple Bottom Line
In relation to the triple bottom line of sustainability, the over-consumption of bottled water can
be applied to all three issues: people, planet and profit.
People are affected by bottled water both financially and physically. Consumers are uneducated
about water, making assumptions that when it is purchased in a store, it is healthier or better
tasting than tap water. In fact, 47.8% of bottled water is repackaged tap water. It costs an excess
1,000 times that of tap water, and evidence shows that it is not, in fact, better for you. The plastic
packaging actually leaches into the water it holds and has been linked to health issues like
reproductive problems and different types of cancer. Numerous highly populated cities in the
United States provide access to clean tap water, diminishing the need for people to purchase
bottled water. For example, New York City has been recorded to have the safest, cleanest tap
water in the whole country, and San Francisco draws public drinking water from Yosemite
National Park. The water is so pure it does not even require to be filtered.
The planet obviously is affected in numerous ways by the consumption of bottled water. First,
the production of plastic bottles is inefficient and harmful to the environment. As stated
previously, it takes three times as much water to manufacture one bottle of water than it does to
fill it. Combined with the chemicals in plastic manufacturing, the water used in production
becomes no longer usable. Second, the lack of recycling by consumers pollutes the environment
immensely. There are 1,500 water bottles consumed per second in the United States. The United
States national recycle rate for these plastic bottles is only 23 percent, which means we throw 38
billion water bottles into landfills a year. While water bottles are composed of completely
recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, the PETs don’t biodegrade. Instead, they
break down into smaller fragments over time, absorbing toxins that pollute waterways,
contaminate soil, and sicken animals (which people then consume). Ten percent of plastic
manufactured worldwide ends up in the ocean, and the majority of that ends up settling on the
oceans floor where it will never degrade.
Lastly, profit is an issue with bottled water to both consumers and manufacturers. As stated
previously, bottled water costs 1000 times that of tap water. Seventeen million barrels of oil are
used each year just to produce bottles globally. (That’s the equivalent amount of oil it would take
to fuel a million cars for an entire year.) The high cost of oil directly affects the cost of water
production, which in return directly affects the price for consumers. In America, over $1 billion
of plastic is wasted each year simply by purchasing bottled water, rather than consuming tap
water.
Problem Solutions
The excess amount of non-recycled water bottles creates an issue that needs to be changed, and a
great place to start is on college campuses. By using college-age students as a target market,
educational institutions throughout the country could implement new drinking hydration-stations,
helping to decrease the use of individual disposable water bottles in a great abundance. This
would give students the ability to easily and efficiently refill water bottles and help reduce waste
as well.
The best way to get college campuses involved with this project is by sending in human
resources to educate the campus population on the damage that water bottles have on
sustainability issues. Consumers must become educated on the topic, developing awareness,
interest, and desire to do their part in helping with this epidemic. Statistics show that 80% of
Americans are uneducated on sustainability issues and green products. From this, it can be
assumed that education programs will be a large necessity in order to change the target market’s
view on the usage of disposable water bottles. The more information that can be provided to
college students, the faster hydration-stations can be implemented along with marketing and
communication tools as well.
An advertising campaign that our group is going to try and integrate into colleges and
universities is the removal of water bottles from campuses all together. Some campuses have
already chosen to discontinue the sale of bottled water in their cafeterias, cafes and vending
machines. If colleges and universities supported the campaign by installing hydration-stations, in
conjunction with discontinuing the sale of bottled water, think about the difference that could
make. Social media will be used as well, on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook,
as they are the most commonly used social media sites by 18-24 year olds. By getting this idea
into social medias, pages can be created, ads can be produced, and groups can be formed in order
to help further the awareness.
With the banning of water bottles on campuses there is obviously potential to take away some of
the revenue made by colleges. It is being proposed that there be donation events to help raise
money for the school and also the hydration-stations being implemented. In addition, these
events will be an opportune time to educate the target market and earn the support of the project
and campaign. This will allow students to come out and see first hand why discontinuing the use
of bottled water is not only beneficial for the environment, but them both physically and
financially.
Solution Description
As described previously, one solution to the problem would be the effective use of human
resources. Educating consumers and users of water bottles at universities, high-schools, and
workplaces is extremely important to help reduce the use of disposable water bottles.
Educational materials could be used in specific scholastic courses that deal with sustainability,
engineering, marketing, or other sciences. Discussing sustainability, creating displays around
campuses to raise awareness, and creating water bottle recycling programs at schools are all
great ways to get the student body involved. As stated before, the ultimate goal would be to get
schools to be “disposable water bottle free.”
This solution needs more than just human resource intervention, but also a change of social
behaviors. Creating a Facebook and Twitter page will increase awareness and inspire action to
decrease water bottle use and increase water fountain filtration systems. Sending a strong
message to student bodies would be the main task. With the increased use of social media among
students of all ages, an effective advertising or marketing campaign would quickly create
awareness and a possible behavioral change. Types of posts would include statistics, videos, and
articles in which inform the public of issues. Social media could also be used to administer
polls, in order to increase consumer engagement and also obtain information to measure and
assess progress.
This plan does not necessarily involve generating funds but rather encouraging students, student
groups, and schools in general to raise awareness of this issue. Through awareness, it would
generate the need for schools to implement greener options such as sustainable water fountains;
although funds could be generated through fundraising or pledges. Examples of the water
fountains are shown below.
Another recommendation is to have colleges and universities around the country start social
clubs at their campus, geared towards helping their schooling-institution and greater
communities become more sustainable. Campus clubs and organizations have a strong
connection with their fellow classmates, and with the right leadership, can make a positive
difference. Here, the club would be geared towards four main aspects, which are: volunteering in
collecting sustainable products that can be recycled, help in spreading the word around their
campus and neighboring communities about sustainable living; come up with positive ways to
reduce unsustainable issues, and be involved with fundraisers where all funds raised will go to a
non-profit sustainable groups. The club members could help promote action in getting involved
with this issue by starting social networking pages that track the club positives doings and
promotion.
Another aspect in how this could be more beneficial is that it could have the goal of the students
in the club to live more sustainable. This could take place at anytime, whether they live at home
with their family, on campus, or even on their own “out in the real world.” Finding willing
students to join/help this club should not be hard to do. In the beginning, they could even teamup with sororities/fraternities at their schooling institution, since organizations such as those have
certain requirements of community service to fulfill.
Solution Impacts
By creating a Facebook and Twitter page to promote awareness, we will be reaching a very large
target of people. Facebook has about 1.23 billion active users, and Twitter has about 232 million
active users and those numbers are only increasing with time. If we make a point to promote this
problem through social media, because of these large increasing statistics it can only help spread
the awareness about increasing the use of reusable bottles and water hydration stations.
Many people are unaware of how terrible bottled water really is for you. According to the
Minnesota Department of Health, consumers buy bottled water because they think it tastes better,
is more fashionable, and is more convenient. If people were more aware about the risks of
bottled water, they would more than likely reconsider their choices. By informing college
students of this problem, there would be a very positive outcome on this issue. Since we are
targeting a younger age group, they will be more likely to spread the awareness due to the fact
high school and college students are the largest group of social media users.
Not only is bottled water very harmful to the environment, but it is also extremely expensive. In
the United States, a bottle of water costs between 25 cents and 2 dollars per bottle while tap
water costs less than a penny. According to Bottledwaterblues.com, approximately 90% of
manufacturer's costs are from making the bottle, label, and cap. If for example, a person pays
one dollar per bottle of water, and consumes roughly 167 bottles annually, they would be able to
save $165.33 annually – if they switched to tap water (and this is assuming the person only paid
$1.00 per water bottle). More than $60 billion is spent annually on bottled water around the
world. With one billion dollars, alone, you can feed one million people breakfast, lunch, and
dinner for a year. If consumers were aware of these types of statistics, they would be more
inclined to act sustainably.
Nearly forty percent of bottled water starts out as tap water. Companies, like Coca Cola and
Pepsi, take the basic tap water, run it through a few filters. Next, they pour it into a bottle with a
highly recognized brand name and sell it back to consumers at a price 240 to 10,000 times higher
than tap water. These are the type of statistics that no one knows about, but would be the most
beneficial to know. Once these statistics are effectively communicated to college students, they
will most likely participate in creating awareness and hopefully make a positive outcome on this
issue.
With informing college students of this issue and promoting the new hydration station systems,
this will most importantly affect the environment. If everyone in New York City used a reusable
water bottle for one month, studies show that it would save nearly 112 million plastic water
bottles. That is just a statistic for one large city- imagine if more cities did this. The amount of
plastic that enters landfills due to bottled water use is overwhelmingly high. If consumers can
become more aware of the harmful effects of bottled water and begin to use tap water or a
filtration system, then it would do wonders for the environment and also save consumers money.
Overall, by reaching out to college students to teach awareness and target through social media,
it would really create a positive impact on this issue of the damaging risks of bottled water.
Works Cited
Bottled Water is Wasteful. (2014). Retrieved April 24, 2014, from The Water Project website:
http://thewaterproject.org/
Bottled Water: Questions and Answers. (2013, August 6). Retrieved April 24, 2014, from
Minnesota Department of Health website: http://www.health.state.mn.us/
Green / Environment Stats. (2014). Retrieved April 24, 2014, from Grab Stats website:
http://www.grabstats.com/
McNally, S. (2014). Get Rid of Plastic Water Bottles. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from
GreenLiving website: http://www.greenlivingonline.com/
Parpal, M. (2014). Reduce Waste: Tapping the Benefits of Tap Water in the Restaurant.
Retrieved April 24, 2014, from Food Service Warehouse website:
http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/