The Poland Springs unit of the Nestle company has announced that they are switching over their entire water tanker fleet to running on B5 biodiesel. The company expects the change to yield reductions in carbon dioxide emissions of 1.8 million pounds per year. Poland Spring's use of biodiesel is part of their company wide effort to reduce their environmental footprint that includes a 91 percent internal recycling rate.
While these changes are admirable in and of themselves, the fact remains that the entire bottled water industry in general is one of the most wasteful things that we propagate. Huge amounts of energy are wasted in packaging and distributing water and the petroleum that is consumed to make all the billions of plastic bottles is probably far more than will ever be saved by running some B5 in tanker trucks. Coupled with the reality that most tests of bottled waters have shown them to be of no higher quality than tap water and it's often worse. Some bottled water availability when people are out and about may be okay but people who buy cases of water and take it home to drink it around the house are just wasting their money and energy.
[Source: Nestle Waters (PDF)]
While these changes are admirable in and of themselves, the fact remains that the entire bottled water industry in general is one of the most wasteful things that we propagate. Huge amounts of energy are wasted in packaging and distributing water and the petroleum that is consumed to make all the billions of plastic bottles is probably far more than will ever be saved by running some B5 in tanker trucks. Coupled with the reality that most tests of bottled waters have shown them to be of no higher quality than tap water and it's often worse. Some bottled water availability when people are out and about may be okay but people who buy cases of water and take it home to drink it around the house are just wasting their money and energy.
[Source: Nestle Waters (PDF)]
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