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- A soccer player with one of our bottles
Did you know that Americans each drank an average of 218 bottles of water in 2007? bottles – 66 billion, in fact! Only 23% of them are recycled so on a daily basis, a staggering 140 million disposable plastic bottles go to landfills in the USA. That’s enough, laid end to end, to reach from New Jersey to China and back every day.
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- A soccer player with one of our bottles
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- bottled water bottles laid end to end from Xhina to the US
It doesn’t take an engineering degree to understand that this is a problem. It is extremely wasteful. To begin with, finite natural resources like water and oil are being consumed in the manufacturing of bottled water. It takes 4 ounces of oil and 51 ounces of water to make one 17 ounce bottle of water! Then after their use, 50 billion disposable plastic water bottles are dumped in landfills each year where they will take over 700 years to decompose.
There is a simple solution to this problem. Drink tap water instead of bottled water and use a reusable bottle when you are on-the-go. Even if you filter and flavor your tap water, you will save money because bottled water is 1000 times more expensive than tap water. There are many reusable bottles on the market today. For a high performance, high quality water bottle, try a stainless steel bottle from Back2Tap.
The bottled water phenomenon may be one of the biggest marketing hoaxes of all time. Huge advertising budgets are spent to convince us that bottled water is healthier and better than tap water even though it isn’t. What next, is someone going to start bottling and selling the air we breathe? Some would say the bottled water company ads are misleading and some would say they are outright lies. Tap water and reusable bottle proponents are becoming more and more creative and vocal in their challenge of this bottled water propaganda.
On one flank of the battle against bottled water, Back2Tap has just posted a creative and thought-provoking awareness video on YouTube that debunks the myths about bottled water - one by one. It aims to raise the question in people’s minds: why am I still drinking bottled water? No exaggeration is necessary to make the case – the waste associated with bottled water is repulsive. Joining Back2Tap’s longer educational video for students, this new video is shorter and primarily for adults.
A much racier approach is taken by another reusable bottle company whose TV ads insinuate that disposable plastic water bottles leach BPA (the hormone disruptor) which they don’t. Providing misinformation in order to scare people into buying a reusable bottle goes over the edge in my opinion. Not surprisingly, they are being sued by the International Bottled Water Association. Another ad campaign described in a recent New York Times article: “An Environmental Group’s Campaign of Wry Lies against Bottled Water” tells amusing lies about bottled water that say “If bottled water companies can lie, we can too.” At least this approach is funny and only promotes lies, tongue in cheek.
Let’s hope this multi-pronged counter-attack will push back the bottled water company highjacking of our senses and resources!
Starting a small business has presented many new experiences as well as frequent moments when my partners and I look at each other and say – “Wow, did you ever think you’d be doing this?” Dragging all our props into the convention center last Tuesday was definitely one of those moments. We had no idea what to expect or how Back2Tap would compare to the other exhibitors. Our booth turned out to be much better than some minimally adorned booths and pleasantly less commercial and cluttered than some big-time commercial fundraising company booths. We offered free tap water, a much less exciting option than the free pizza, cheesecake, chocolate and candies offered at other booths, but those who partook were quite grateful to quench their thirst with a healthy alternative.
One of the best parts of the day turned out to be watching people’s expressions as they first looked at our booth – they seemed puzzled but curious. Why was there a giant tower made of plastic bottles? What exactly was Back2Tap selling? Tap water? It took about 2-3 minutes to explain why bottled water is so wasteful and how selling Back2Tap stainless steel bottles as a green fundraiser could help the planet and help a school community. Only one person had heard of us, and only two people had considered this type of fundraising campaign. No other exhibitors offered a customized green fundraising item. Most of the other fundraising companies were offering the same old items- knickknacks, clothes, and unhealthy foods. Clearly, we were offering something new and different to the PTO Today audience.
For most of the day, all four of us were busy giving our elevator pitches to groups PTO parents as they wandered by our booth. I couldn’t help but notice that the booth across the aisle that had attracted lots of attention in the morning with its screen show and four active salespeople had quieted down by mid-day whereas we were still going strong. I think we were able to maintain our enthusiasm because we really believe that our cause, reducing plastic waste, is good beyond profits, and we get genuinely excited by convincing other people of that.
We noticed that some exhibitors had signs boasting of 55% profit margins for their customers. Is this number the best measure of a fundraising option? High profit margins usually mean the items are overpriced to the customer or are very cheaply made. We know from firsthand experience as parents and PTO volunteers that parents resent being asked to pay too much for fundraising items and lose enthusiasm when they are offered the same items they really don’t want year after year. This is why we chose to offer high quality reusable bottles priced close to retail with a 20-30% payback.
Tim Sullivan of PTO Today concurs in his March 2009 PTO Today article entitled: “More to Fundraising Than Profit”. Sullivan writes: “The best PTOs and PTAs aim to create a great community at their school, to grow parent involvement, to serve parents, and to help provide valuable resources for the school and the students.” This is exactly what Back2Tap is trying to do – spread a green movement through the school communities that will bring people together around a shared sense of concern and desire to do something good for the planet, for themselves and for their school.
How about kicking off a Back2Tap campaign for your school’s Earth Day celebration on April 22! This movement against the ridiculous wastefulness of bottled water, is gaining momentum in schools across the country. Once students are made aware of the problem, it is easy for them to take action by drinking tap water from a reusable bottle and making their own drinks using concentrated drink mixes with tap water. These very simple steps toward sustainability are easy for students to comprehend and feel good about.
Back2Tap offers free downloadable educational resources, including a fun 9 minute video about the wastefulness of bottled water and everything you need to know about tap water, suitable for ages K-8, but guaranteed to be enlightening to high school students and adults, too. Classroom activities include making a bottle tower out of discarded disposable plastic water bottles, conducting a drinking container survey, collecting and categorizing waste for a day, and more. These resources will raise students’ environmental awareness and their understanding of sustainability and are well suited for either an Earth Day assembly or for classroom activities.
The educational program can be followed up by our green fundraising campaign. Back2Tap partners with a representative from a PTO/PTA, Boosters, faculty, or student group to sell high quality reusable stainless steel bottles with custom logos to members of the school community. Do something good for the planet and for your budget with our Back2Tap campaign! To learn more, please visit http://www.back2tap.com/fundraising2.html.
