A sign of the times?
The other evening, I was in a Toronto restaurant (Cava, on Yonge street) – a hip tapas-type restaurant with an awesome wine list. The waiter came to take our order. He listened attentively, committed it to memory, helped us choose a suitable wine, and then said “can I suggest tap water with that?”. Tap water?! Of course! we said, but we probed – why tap water (free) and not mineral water (great margins for him). “We feel its important for the environment,” he said. “It’s one of the ways we can contribute…”.
Banning the Bottle
Cava is not alone. There are websites (Inside the Bottle and Ban the Bottle) dedicated to banning plastic bottles: 50 Canadian municipalities, 30+ universities and colleges, and many government institutions have banned plastic bottles for sale.
Canada is not alone, municipalities and counties in the US are running “drink our water” and “please refill” advertisements (Dade County Florida was sued by Nestle Waters for statements that put bottled water in a bad light); North Carolina just passed a law banning single-use plastic bottles from landfills (they must be recycled); and environmental groups are seeing this as the first step in pushing for similar bans on soft-drink bottles too. In Australia, the city of Bundanoon, has banned the sale of bottled water within city limits.
Even in Switzerland, home to bottled water, where I live across the narrow lake from Evian and next door to Nestle, restaurants are increasingly proposing (and accepting that one request) tap water. 5 years ago that was looked down on as cheap and possibly dangerous. Today it’s considered an environmentally sensitive choice.
Bans go Beyond Bottles
Toronto has implemented a 5 cent/bag minimum fee for all plastic carrier bags in stores. A move that has shocked everyone by being hugely successful for everyone (except plastic bag manufacturers, that is): consumption of plastic bags has fallen by 85%; revenues to retailers have increased since each bag that they do provide at the 5 cent minimum, only costs them a fraction of a penny to buy; the government has much less difficult-to-recycle waste; and shoppers are surprised to find that the fee, which feels a little like a fine, is sufficient to remind them to carry reusables with them at all times.
Toronto could be considered leading edge. Except that it trails New Delhi.
and Tamil Nadu (Tamil Nadu Throwaway Plastic Articles Act – Prohibition of Sale, Storage, Distribution and Transport); even the UN has weighed in (UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner Calls for World-Wide Ban on Pointless Thin Film Plastic Bags: “There is simply zero justification for manufacturing [plastic bags] anymore, anywhere” UN Environmental Programme executive director Achim Steiner).
The biggest shift is behavioural
All these moves could be considered trivial in light of the volumes and financial significance of plastic bags and plastic bottles globally. But the shift is a more subtle and, I believe, more important one: bottled water is going from status symbol, endorsed by celebrities (consider Madonna’s video where she. . . how shall we put it? . . . ‘pleasures’ a bottle of Evian), to brazenly wasteful. Sarah Jessica Parker got plaudits for drinking tap water at a UN Charity event.
If Hollywood & Bollywood go green – can the public be far behind?
As Hollywood goes green (Leonardo di Caprio driving a Prius; Arnold Schwarzenegger retrofitting his Hummer to run on biofuels), and Bollywood goes green, so goes the unmistakable social norming of green decisions – and of discomfort with non-green decisions. Increasing population, increasing wealth and increasing demand ensure that the drivers for more sustainable behaviour will continue of necessity to grow in strength and urgency. This is an auspicious moment for companies to incorporate green principles more rigorously in their offer if they don’t want to find themselves at the wrong end of a public ban.
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