At least in switzerland water in a Bottle is never eco-friendly. It doesn’t matter what material it is made of. We have excellent water quality almost everywhere for free from the tap.
why buying water in a bottle when you can have it free from the tab
it’s not, and most eco friendly/bio labels are literally made by enterprises to have their specifications tailored around their needs. I mean, even Nestlé made one lol
Just refill it with tap water if it makes you feel better..
these P.E.T bottles are 99% recycled in switzerland, and lot of new bottles are made of it too…
It always depends on which sustainability criteria you look at. These can for instance be
– use of water
– use of energy for transport
– life cycle GHG emissions
– waste
– use of resources, recycling and circular economy
it depends. if you throw it into a designated PET Trash it’s quite sustainable but if you throw it in the normal trash that’s bullshit. But both are still worse than having a refillable bottle and filing it up at the tap.
Yes if you throw it in the recycling bin
Well the carbon used for the fizz in Valser is captured directly from the air by Climeworks in Hinwil, so yeah, at least that part is carbon neutral. Don’t know about the bottles, but we’re quite good in recycling them.
See this: https://www.valser.ch/verantwortung/co2/climeworks-weltpremiere-2019
Plastic use in everyday goods is complete irrelevant for the climate compared to other things we do.
Prof. Knuti said it in his interview with Tagesanzeiger a few days ago: people think they are helping with these things, but it’s not really relevant. The rebound effect is even counterproductive. You can not use plastic bags for 100 years, but if you only fly once more because you think you are already doing enough with such mininal effect behavioral changes, the whole effect is gone and reversed.
PET plastic can be and is recycled for the same use.
The claim from Valser is the company is carbon neutral. The goal is achieved partly through their own reduction partly through compensation.
If you are interested in in this topic i can recommend you a video of jake tran about the plastic industry. The same people that produce the plastic also recycle it and its mostly i giant scam industry
Tap water is much much more environmental friendly, as well as much much cheaper. Makes no sense to buy bottled water in Siwtzerland, ever.
And you can also win a super eco-friendly green car with it! The irony of the whole thing…
While I do not know how this company SPECIFICALLY operates, I can tell you a couple of important points on how the industry overall works:
1. Most of these carbon neutral claims are simply done by purchasing carbon credits from green companies (e.g. Tesla for the car segment, has a lot of carbon credits since its cars are electric and sells them to traditional manufacturers, Google is carbon neutral in the tech space, etc..).
So it is not THAT SPECIFIC bottle that is carbon neutral, it is just an accounting trick they use (legal, of course). In plain terms, companies pay a fee to another greener company, “buying” the right to feature a green CLAIM on a bottle or other product. There are companies that only specialize in producing carbon credits to sell them to large organizations.
2. When companies say there is recycled plastic (or ocean plastic) in bottles, often it is true BUT there are 2 caviats: (1) often the bottle is not 100% recycled plastic, because the quality of recycled plastic is very low so you need to use part of virgin plastic to still create a solid, working bottle. So for example you might have 50% recycled and 50% virgin plastic. (2) Even if a specific bottle is 100% from recycled plastic (rare but they exist), it does not mean that the company is green. They usually produce 99 bottles from VIRGIN plastic, without saying anything on the packaging, and then 1 bottle from RECYCLED plastic, claiming they are super green (technically true, but only for THAT bottle, not for the company). Usually these recycled bottles are limited series that go in supermarkets at certain times.
**Note that these “green” bottles cost A LOT more to produce than virgin plastic bottles (either by purchasing carbon credits or using expensive recycled plastic). So what companies do is to produce limited batches of bottles and sell them at higher prices. It is then considered a PR /marketing move OR a “choice” they give to consumers (pay more to get the greener bottle). However, overall the company is far from being green or using 100% recycled plastic.** Sometimes big companies have BRANDS that are 100% green but kept at low volume sof production, and then they offer also normal plastic bottles.
To be fair, almost all companies in the consumer goods space nowadays have sustainability agendas to go to more and more recycled and green bottles / packacing … the fundamental struggle with this is that it does NOT make sense nor financially (recycled plastic is too expensive and eats in their very thin margins – they literally could not afford to produce 100% recycled), neither technically (it is impossible to have 100% recycled plastic bottle in the world, because plastic degrades with use so you will ALWAYS have to use a bit of virgin plastic to compensate for degradation).
**TL;DR**: yes, 99% of “green” claims from consumer goods companies are greenwashing as soon as you dig a bit more. That’s because doing green packaging impacts heavily their profits so they simply cannot do it.
What does climate friendly even mean?
And in regards to co2 neutral: they achieve this by *compensating* their co2 emissions by *buying co2-certificates*.
That’s better than nothing, but whenever you read something like it, consider it PR.
It is friendly. Its made from 100 % recycled PET. But it is still plastic, so…
Tap water in Switzerland is better than bottled water. Sad that even here, people still buy that shit.
100% eco-washing, firstly because our water is clean af on literally can be taken from the tap or the many parcs with fountains, and secondly cause that bottle isnt made of recycled plastic. If it was, i’d give it the benefit of the doubt but as it stands, nah…
Just get a metal bottle and refil it daily at home. Heck of a lot more eco-friendly and cheaper too.
Bottled water in Switzerland is the most pointless thing you can think of. The climate-friendly thing to do is to drink tap water (and use a soda club if you need bubbles).
I am supposing that they are allowed to call it “climat neutral” as long as they voluntarily pay some pretend fine or get one of these clown labels.
“Unavoidable emissions must be counterbalanced by high-quality climate projects.”
Consumer level PET consumption makes no difference whatsoever.
I don’t know if that’s the case here, but couldn’t they be talking about offsetting the effect to the environment by planting forest or building windmills? In that case, the transactions surrounding the bottle are climate neutral or friendly, even if the bottle isn’t per se.
It’s somewhere around 0.1-0.2% of your daily carbon footprint, provided it is recycled.
I’ve lived in Switzerland for nearly 4 years now and I don’t think I’ve bought a single plastic bottle of water since we moved here. There are water fountains everywhere and it’s delicious fresh cold water!
well its one-use for you personally, but if it gets recycled later on its still better than making a new bottle from the ground up.
28 comments
At least in switzerland water in a Bottle is never eco-friendly. It doesn’t matter what material it is made of. We have excellent water quality almost everywhere for free from the tap.
why buying water in a bottle when you can have it free from the tab
it’s not, and most eco friendly/bio labels are literally made by enterprises to have their specifications tailored around their needs. I mean, even Nestlé made one lol
Just refill it with tap water if it makes you feel better..
these P.E.T bottles are 99% recycled in switzerland, and lot of new bottles are made of it too…
It always depends on which sustainability criteria you look at. These can for instance be
– use of water
– use of energy for transport
– life cycle GHG emissions
– waste
– use of resources, recycling and circular economy
it depends. if you throw it into a designated PET Trash it’s quite sustainable but if you throw it in the normal trash that’s bullshit. But both are still worse than having a refillable bottle and filing it up at the tap.
Yes if you throw it in the recycling bin
Well the carbon used for the fizz in Valser is captured directly from the air by Climeworks in Hinwil, so yeah, at least that part is carbon neutral. Don’t know about the bottles, but we’re quite good in recycling them.
See this: https://www.valser.ch/verantwortung/co2/climeworks-weltpremiere-2019
Plastic use in everyday goods is complete irrelevant for the climate compared to other things we do.
Prof. Knuti said it in his interview with Tagesanzeiger a few days ago: people think they are helping with these things, but it’s not really relevant. The rebound effect is even counterproductive. You can not use plastic bags for 100 years, but if you only fly once more because you think you are already doing enough with such mininal effect behavioral changes, the whole effect is gone and reversed.
PET plastic can be and is recycled for the same use.
The claim from Valser is the company is carbon neutral. The goal is achieved partly through their own reduction partly through compensation.
https://youtu.be/LELvVUIz5pY
If you are interested in in this topic i can recommend you a video of jake tran about the plastic industry. The same people that produce the plastic also recycle it and its mostly i giant scam industry
Tap water is much much more environmental friendly, as well as much much cheaper. Makes no sense to buy bottled water in Siwtzerland, ever.
And you can also win a super eco-friendly green car with it! The irony of the whole thing…
It’s literally in a green plastic bottle?
https://youtu.be/GceNsojnMf0
You bought it.
While I do not know how this company SPECIFICALLY operates, I can tell you a couple of important points on how the industry overall works:
1. Most of these carbon neutral claims are simply done by purchasing carbon credits from green companies (e.g. Tesla for the car segment, has a lot of carbon credits since its cars are electric and sells them to traditional manufacturers, Google is carbon neutral in the tech space, etc..).
So it is not THAT SPECIFIC bottle that is carbon neutral, it is just an accounting trick they use (legal, of course). In plain terms, companies pay a fee to another greener company, “buying” the right to feature a green CLAIM on a bottle or other product. There are companies that only specialize in producing carbon credits to sell them to large organizations.
2. When companies say there is recycled plastic (or ocean plastic) in bottles, often it is true BUT there are 2 caviats: (1) often the bottle is not 100% recycled plastic, because the quality of recycled plastic is very low so you need to use part of virgin plastic to still create a solid, working bottle. So for example you might have 50% recycled and 50% virgin plastic. (2) Even if a specific bottle is 100% from recycled plastic (rare but they exist), it does not mean that the company is green. They usually produce 99 bottles from VIRGIN plastic, without saying anything on the packaging, and then 1 bottle from RECYCLED plastic, claiming they are super green (technically true, but only for THAT bottle, not for the company). Usually these recycled bottles are limited series that go in supermarkets at certain times.
**Note that these “green” bottles cost A LOT more to produce than virgin plastic bottles (either by purchasing carbon credits or using expensive recycled plastic). So what companies do is to produce limited batches of bottles and sell them at higher prices. It is then considered a PR /marketing move OR a “choice” they give to consumers (pay more to get the greener bottle). However, overall the company is far from being green or using 100% recycled plastic.** Sometimes big companies have BRANDS that are 100% green but kept at low volume sof production, and then they offer also normal plastic bottles.
To be fair, almost all companies in the consumer goods space nowadays have sustainability agendas to go to more and more recycled and green bottles / packacing … the fundamental struggle with this is that it does NOT make sense nor financially (recycled plastic is too expensive and eats in their very thin margins – they literally could not afford to produce 100% recycled), neither technically (it is impossible to have 100% recycled plastic bottle in the world, because plastic degrades with use so you will ALWAYS have to use a bit of virgin plastic to compensate for degradation).
**TL;DR**: yes, 99% of “green” claims from consumer goods companies are greenwashing as soon as you dig a bit more. That’s because doing green packaging impacts heavily their profits so they simply cannot do it.
What does climate friendly even mean?
And in regards to co2 neutral: they achieve this by *compensating* their co2 emissions by *buying co2-certificates*.
That’s better than nothing, but whenever you read something like it, consider it PR.
It is friendly. Its made from 100 % recycled PET. But it is still plastic, so…
Tap water in Switzerland is better than bottled water. Sad that even here, people still buy that shit.
100% eco-washing, firstly because our water is clean af on literally can be taken from the tap or the many parcs with fountains, and secondly cause that bottle isnt made of recycled plastic. If it was, i’d give it the benefit of the doubt but as it stands, nah…
Just get a metal bottle and refil it daily at home. Heck of a lot more eco-friendly and cheaper too.
Bottled water in Switzerland is the most pointless thing you can think of. The climate-friendly thing to do is to drink tap water (and use a soda club if you need bubbles).
I am supposing that they are allowed to call it “climat neutral” as long as they voluntarily pay some pretend fine or get one of these clown labels.
Edit: aaaaand…. that’s exactly it:
https://ch.coca-colahellenic.com/en/media/news-and-stories/sustainability/re-certified–valser-is-climate-neutral-
“Unavoidable emissions must be counterbalanced by high-quality climate projects.”
Consumer level PET consumption makes no difference whatsoever.
I don’t know if that’s the case here, but couldn’t they be talking about offsetting the effect to the environment by planting forest or building windmills? In that case, the transactions surrounding the bottle are climate neutral or friendly, even if the bottle isn’t per se.
It’s somewhere around 0.1-0.2% of your daily carbon footprint, provided it is recycled.
[This study](https://packagingeurope.com/study-confirms-excellent-carbon-footprint-of-recycled-pet/) quotes 0.45 kg of CO2 per kg or recycled PET, which translates into 0.045, assuming the empty bottle weighs 100g. Assuming approximately 15 tonnes of yearly CO2 emissions per person ([from this study](https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet)), you get aroung 40kg per day, which means a bottle accounts for ~0.1% of daily emissions. There’s some added carbon footprint from it being transported.
I’ve lived in Switzerland for nearly 4 years now and I don’t think I’ve bought a single plastic bottle of water since we moved here. There are water fountains everywhere and it’s delicious fresh cold water!
well its one-use for you personally, but if it gets recycled later on its still better than making a new bottle from the ground up.