A Fijian child isn’t.

A recent investigation by the BBC states that one third of Fiji’s population doesn’t have access to clean drinking water. Fiji, it says, has problems with typhoid and other diseases caused by a lack of clean drinking water.

According to the BBC, “Fiji Water would make the case that if you really care about the plight of Fijians you should buy Fiji water as it provides jobs and income for the islands.” The company donates money to fund clean water projects on the island. But it seems we are talking water indulgences here: a little cash to ease the conscience, perhaps? Because, according to another article, Fiji is still in shortage. And when the Fijian government tried to institute a tax on bottled water earlier this summer, they were quickly defeated by a powerful bottled water lobby. Meaning water companies want to give back to the country for its most precious resource, but only on their own terms. This doesn’t exactly ring of charity. 

So one way to avoid exploiting environments and people is to take a pass on Fiji water and other bottled brands. Local tap water may not be as exotic, but at least it’s free of such moral quandaries.

-Erica Schuetz
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Corporate attempts to label their products as “green” for the sake of turning a fast buck are nothing new. Corporations exist, after all, in order to make money, and capitalizing on whatever is capturing the public’s collective imagination is often the best way of doing so. But Fiji Artisanal Water’s entree into the green movement strikes us as particularly suspect.

The company has recently launched fijigreen.com, a website outlining the ways in which their water is “good for the environment.”

If you’re anything like us, you are probably wondering how this claim could be true.

It can’t. 

While Fiji’s Artisanal Water’s commitment to reducing their packaging, investing in rainforest renewal and reducing their carbon emissions may be applauded by some, these measures are not enough to make them a green company. By definition, bottled water is simply not an environmentally friendly product.

When companies package and sell water, they take a natural resource that falls freely from the sky from communities that need it, stick it in plastic bottles (made from oil, of course), and ship it across the globe to sell it for hundreds, sometimes thousands of times its actual value.  And while Fiji and its cohorts can encourage consumers to recycle, the fact of the matter is that 86% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the trash, instead of being recycled.

With citizens and governments around the world abuzz with worries of oil shortages, how can companies continue to manufacture a needless product that directly contributes to this impending crisis, let alone have the audacity to proclaim it “green?”

The most sustainable water option isn’t actually green at all (if it were, that would be a bit scary). It’s actually quite clear: tap water.  It’s convenient, delivered through energy-efficient means, and in most cases, is just as healthy and pure as its froufy bottled counterparts--sometimes cleaner.  Even better, it requires spending very little green in order to do something green.

For more on why tap water is a better alternative to bottled, check out our resources at www.takebackthetap.org. Then tell us how you feel about Fiji Artisanal Water’s not-so-green marketing machine.