Duo urges scrapping plastic water bottles
Print Edition
It may sound like a mission impossible, but Americans Karena Albers and Jenifer Willig are trying to persuade people to get rid of plastic bottles of water.
The two founders of the NGO Whole World Water are focusing on the travel and tourism industry and talking to major hotel groups in China.
The aim is to replace use of commercially bottled water with filtered water, which would be bottled in reusable glass bottles. A major issue is finding a filtration company that can service hotels.
“China presents a huge and exciting opportunity. If we can change the way that China consumes water, the impact would be enormous,” said Albers, a cofounder with Willig and others of the NGO that was founded last March in the United States, based in New York. They attended a Slow Life Symposium in Thailand and were interviewed via e-mail.“As a society we must reduce the amount of plastic waste we are throwing away,” said Albers. “Beyond the plastic waste, by filtering and bottling your own water you are reducing carbon emissions, food miles and consuming a higher quality product.”
She said out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year in the US alone, 80 percent end up in a landfill, despite reycling programs. It takes more than 700 years for plastic to decompose, and it takes three bottles of water to produce and distribute one disposable plastic bottle of water., she said.
The group focuses on hotels, travel resorts and restaurants. Around 50 have joined the program.
“The hospitality and tourism industry has a responsibility and role to play in addressing the problem; tourists and travelers consume more water and natural resources than local residents,” said Willig.
Hospitality is a multi-trillion-dollar industry and with economies of scale, the travel and tourism industry can raise as much as US$1 billion a year to invest in clean and safe drinking water for the communities where they do business, she said.
Venues would filter and bottle their own water at source in reusable glass, selling to guests and donating some of the proceeds to environmental projects worldwide.
“The idea was really very simple — take this model to the travel and tourism industry at large and position it as a profitable business proposition — filtering your own water is cheaper than buying branded bottled water,” said Albers.
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