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World Water Day highlights the importance of a safe, sustainable water supply
Linda Casey
January 30, 2014
3 Min Read
.svg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=95&format=jpg&disable=upscale "World Water Day highlights the importance of a safe, sustainable water supply")
World Water Day, a United Nations (U.N.) sponsored event is held on March 22 aims to focus attention on the importance of fresh water, and to advocate the sustainable management of fresh water resources. This year's theme is "Water For Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge." This year's World Water Day comes on the heels of natural disasters that demonstrated how vulnerable water systems can be, and how bottled water can help in times of emergency.
In a statement recognizing the importance of World Water Day, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) notes that in times of emergency, bottled water is a staple and always there when you need it, and cites news reports of how the bottled water industry responded to the crisis in Japan:
Japanese officials were overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis, with millions of people facing days and nights without electricity, water, food or heat in near-freezing temperatures, according to the Associated Press of Japan. British news sources reported 1.5 million people in Japan - mostly in urban areas -- were without water. U.S. bottlers immediately provided several million dollars in cash and product donations, joining in a huge international effort to provide bottled water.
Floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, boil alerts and other events often compromise municipal water systems. Domestically, IBWA members contribute millions of gallons of water each year to the affected victims and work closely with federal, state and local agencies on a year-round basis to prepare for emergency distribution of water. IBWA's broad-ranging expertise can help government officials better understand the issues involved as they attempt to create a more workable system.
Bottled water companies are often the first responders to these emergency situations, acting as a backup for compromised public water systems. However, for bottled water to be available in emergency situations there must also be a viable commercial marketplace that supports its production. Reducing the commercial viability of bottled water could seriously threaten its availability during emergency situations, and laws and actions which negatively target bottled water are an ironic disservice to, and poor public policy for, an industry that is called upon every year to provide crucial drinking water throughout the U.S. and the world.
Bottled water industry's environmental actions
IBWA also highlighted the bottled water industry's actions to use more sustainable packaging for water and the group's active support of comprehensive curbside recycling programs.
Actions to adopt more eco-friendly water bottling practices and packaging have been noted by Packaging Digest, in its reporting of projects such as Growing more eco-friendly water bottling practices
By using recycled materials, alternative packaging (recycled PET, PLA, biodegradable and compostable materials), and increasing the fuel efficiency in the transportation of their products to market, IBWA notes that the bottled water industry is working to reduce its environmental footprint. By developing and using lighter-weight plastics for its containers, in eight years, the average weight of single-serve bottled water has decreased by more than 32 percent.
The group also remarked that bottled water containers make up a very small part of the waste stream, accounting for less than one-third of one percent all waste produced in the U.S and 31 percent of all bottled water containers are recycled, which IBWA claims is a record high result for any PET plastic container.
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