Nestle wants to bottle water from Florida's Ginnie Springs -- for free

[NAM001]

No plastic bottles and no cheap deposits. 45 years ago Vt had a $0.25 deposit on canned drinks, a couple of years later all of New England shared the same deposit system, but it's now time to again make the deposit expensive enough that people wouldn't think about tossing a can/bottle out the car window when its's empty.

Only glass bottles with a deposit/refund system, lets say the bottle is sold including a $1.00 deposit, when you return the bottle to any store carrying it you get your $1.00 deposit back. Nestle can now clean/sterilize and reuse the bottle.

Since pumping water out of the aquifier will create more sinkholes, is it possible to arrange that all the sinkholes show up only in Tallahassie. Let the fools who created the mess be the ones affected by it.

Michael

That is why we have plastic now. the bottles were returned at great shipping proice to be cleaned and reused until some disgruntled employee didnto clean the bottles and just refilled them with the existing trash in them. Now more refillng of containers. That led to what to do with all the glass and metel emptys. plastic was the answer to that since their recycling was a total destruction of the container. We still have metel containers but they are crushed to save space and made unusable in the recycling.

 

[Caveeagle]

Ok.. everybody take a deep breath here. I’m am sure my opinions here are probably not going to be popular, but I would suggest some of you to calm down and think critically a little bit about stories like this.

I worked (formerly) in the beverage industry, and have a fair amount if inside knowledge of the industry. (Not Nestle BTW).

Their existing facility IS currently operating under a 20yr permit for the water. They pay for the permit, but not the actual water. This is no different than many other industries who source water from either ground water or municipal water systems. It is not at all unusual for there to be no charge for the actual water other than for municipal infrastructure at many plants. Many beverage plants actually pay for discharge which is rated based on BODs and what needs to be treated from the waste. (Off topic),

What I find interesting is the lack of information about water studies and actual impact to the watershed, one article talks about impact to White Spring, which I find ridiculous, White spring stopped flowing years ago and long before any of the water plants were built in the area.

I am all for being very careful with our resources and making sure we don’t do damage to our ecosystem. I just find many people can’t resist resorting to misinformation and lazy arguments, to support a enviro-political agenda.

My parting thought on this topic: Brewing of beer is probably the most environmentally harmful beverage option. Not even considering the agricultural impact of the hops, the brewing process wastes 5:1 water for the end product. I have yet to see any environmentalist waging war on the beer producers.

 

[Caveeagle]

No plastic bottles and no cheap deposits. 45 years ago Vt had a $0.25 deposit on canned drinks, a couple of years later all of New England shared the same deposit system, but it's now time to again make the deposit expensive enough that people wouldn't think about tossing a can/bottle out the car window when its's empty.

Only glass bottles with a deposit/refund system, lets say the bottle is sold including a $1.00 deposit, when you return the bottle to any store carrying it you get your $1.00 deposit back. Nestle can now clean/sterilize and reuse the bottle.

Since pumping water out of the aquifier will create more sinkholes, is it possible to arrange that all the sinkholes show up only in Tallahassie. Let the fools who created the mess be the ones affected by it.

Michael

Oh my,, so much wrong with this. I have lived and worked in “bottle deposit” states and also done a lot of volunteer clean up work in the same states. Guess what!? People still toss beer and soda bottles out. It also creates an extremely inefficient path of reverse logistics as the retailer and suppliers are forced to manage the haulbacks. These “schemes” are typically ways to hide the salami and create new revenue streams for an already inflated government.

Umm. Returnable glass bottles were gross. I picked up millions of them working a beverage delivery route. The things I found in old bottles were gross. They all went through a cleaning, sanitizing process, but there’s no way to catch everything.

1)Minimize post consumer waste
2) fund and encourage recycling programs
3) develop alternatives to plastic.
4) stop letting tax hustlers sucker you into giving them more of your money to waste!

 

[JHumbert15]

Ok.. everybody take a deep breath here. I’m am sure my opinions here are probably not going to be popular, but I would suggest some of you to calm down and think critically a little bit about stories like this.

I worked (formerly) in the beverage industry, and have a fair amount if inside knowledge of the industry. (Not Nestle BTW).

Their existing facility IS currently operating under a 20yr permit for the water. They pay for the permit, but not the actual water. This is no different than many other industries who source water from either ground water or municipal water systems. It is not at all unusual for there to be no charge for the actual water other than for municipal infrastructure at many plants. Many beverage plants actually pay for discharge which is rated based on BODs and what needs to be treated from the waste. (Off topic),

What I find interesting is the lack of information about water studies and actual impact to the watershed, one article talks about impact to White Spring, which I find ridiculous, White spring stopped flowing years ago and long before any of the water plants were built in the area.

I am all for being very careful with our resources and making sure we don’t do damage to our ecosystem. I just find many people can’t resist resorting to misinformation and lazy arguments, to support a enviro-political agenda.

My parting thought on this topic: Brewing of beer is probably the most environmentally harmful beverage option. Not even considering the agricultural impact of the hops, the brewing process wastes 5:1 water for the end product. I have yet to see any environmentalist waging war on the beer producers.

That's a fair point; I won't argue that. But I think that more people are upset about Nestle themself, not just bottling water. Nestle has a horrible track record and it is what it is. They're very unsustainable and that probbaly won't ever change.

1)Minimize post consumer waste
2) fund and encourage recycling programs
3) develop alternatives to plastic.

I agree with this as well.

Regardless, Nestle is a very unsustainable company, and giving them access to more land and resources to destroy is not a good option right now.

- Jake

 

[Stoo]

My house is on a well and I share the aquifer with a Nestle bottling plant. People have been protesting their use of what is essentially free water forever. I'm too lazy to look up what they pay for access to the water, but it's essentially nothing. The plant in Aberfoyle, Ontario is huge and must bottle gazillions of gallons of water.

And for the record, I hate the very concept of bottled water when it comes to using it unnecessarily. When I see someone pushing a shopping cart FULL of cases of bottled water when I am certain that they have access to clean municipal water, it makes my head explode.

Having said that, I've never really understood the argument against extracting water to bottle. People are drinking the water one way or the other. In the village of Freelton, where I live, the "town water" comes from the same aquifer. The same one that I tap with my well, and the same one that Nestle taps. One way or the other, that water is getting consumed. In my case, I'm also on a septic system. I figure whatever I drink ultimately goes back into the aquifer after it's filtered from my septic system through the earth.

So my problem with bottled water is more the bottle than the water. I appreciate that our aquifer seems to be huge and I know I have never had any issues with supply. But, allof my neighbors are conscious of the fact that it might not always be like that. Very few of us water our lawns. We don't use herbicides on our lawns. Dandelions are pretty.

I appreciate that our example may not be typical. We are on a very large aquifer and in a pretty low population density area. That may not be the case everywhere. But some people legitimately need a source of water. Flint does. Utila does. Lot's of places don't have a reliable source of clean water.

I think the key is to legislate plastic manufacturers into producing a better bottle. Something that decays in a short time or is compostable. Manufacturers need to be enthusiastically encouraged to come up with alternatives. And I believe they will. Management of these large corporations ain't stupid. They see the rising tide against plastic and they risk the wrath of the public if they aren't seen as being responsible in developing alternatives to plastic bottles.

 

[loosenit2]

Oh my,, so much wrong with this. I have lived and worked in “bottle deposit” states and also done a lot of volunteer clean up work in the same states. Guess what!? People still toss beer and soda bottles out. It also creates an extremely inefficient path of reverse logistics as the retailer and suppliers are forced to manage the haulbacks. These “schemes” are typically ways to hide the salami and create new revenue streams for an already inflated government.

Umm. Returnable glass bottles were gross. I picked up millions of them working a beverage delivery route. The things I found in old bottles were gross. They all went through a cleaning, sanitizing process, but there’s no way to catch everything.

1)Minimize post consumer waste
2) fund and encourage recycling programs
3) develop alternatives to plastic.
4) stop letting tax hustlers sucker you into giving them more of your money to waste!

I had the opportunity to live in Germany for 3 years, their system of bottle deposits and returns is very efficient and very convenient, hence it works well; It is worthy of replication. In general Germany is light years ahead of the US in environmentally safe practices and mentality.

 

[Bob DBF]

I had the opportunity to live in Germany for 3 years, their system of bottle deposits and returns is very efficient and very convenient, hence it works well; It is worthy of replication

So how does it work?


Bob

 

[Caveeagle]

I had the opportunity to live in Germany for 3 years, their system of bottle deposits and returns is very efficient and very convenient, hence it works well; It is worthy of replication. In general Germany is light years ahead of the US in environmentally safe practices and mentality.

And I lived in Germany for 6 years. I can tell you they had active recycling spots in the mid 80s
Long before such things are common in the us.

Concepts of Supply Chain and economics can be vastly different from one county to another. To state one could simply “replicate” a German model here is very naive.

Why did it take so long for Europe to covert to unleaded gas? Hmmm?

Surprise: not everything in Germany/Europe is as perfect as you might think.

 

[loosenit2]

@Caveeagle why so hostile and angry? Most folks understand the differences between countries and the political willingness to do something, it does not mean that we should not look to what others are doing in an attempt to learn from best practices.

 

[RyanT]

I work in Panama and they still have a re-useable glass bottle system. I love it. I pay my $3 deposit for a case of glass beer bottles and then return them to be re-used when I'm done. It may not be a perfect system, but it sure seems better than the alternatives. We know what the issues are with single-use plastics, and recycling (e.g melting down) glass bottles is incredibly energy intensive. Is a deposit system going to solve all the world's problems? Nope! Regardless, it would be a step forward and I would strongly support going back to this system in the US.

Not sure @Caveeagle and I are on the same page here, but he did hit on an important consideration regarding the beer brewing industry. His suggestion of a 5:1 ratio is generous, most brewers probably aren't even that efficient.