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Do Bottled Water, and Water Coolers, Contribute to Global Warming?

27/02/2012 By British Water Cooler Association

Global warming is undoubtedly contributed to by all industrial and commercial processes including mains water and bottled water production and distribution to the consumers.

Bottled water is a delivered product and as such its food miles have been under close scrutiny by environmental groups. However, food miles as a concept for monitoring carbon emissions also highlights that all foods should be transported as short a distance as possible; this means purchasing locally produced food. Bottled water supplied through water coolers makes a positive contribution to reducing food miles in two ways:

1. Bottled water for water coolers is generally bottled regionally by the water cooler provider and so it does not need to be transported hundreds of miles from the source to the distribution depots.

2. Bottled water for water coolers is supplied in large 19 litre polycarbonate plastic containers which are returned to the bottler for refilling some 50 times during their lifetime, unlike the smaller retail-pack bottles of 1 litre made of PET plastic which are only used once before they are recycled. The large polycarbonate bottles used by the water cooler industry are recycled at the end of their useful life and used in the manufacture of non-food products. There is no wastage, or dumping in landfill sites.

The BWCA encourages its members to utilise route optimisation computer programmes to analyse consumer purchasing patterns and ensure that deliveries of bottled water for water coolers are undertaken on a minimum demand-based frequency in a positive effort to reduce food miles and carbon emissions.

For more information please contact the British Water Cooler Association.



© 2012 Office Water Coolers

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