Think outside the Bottle?

Think outside the Bottle?

August 1st 2007 23:36

I guess we have all seen this brewing in me for the last few days, and I am hoping this will be my last post about water. I read an Article in the Economist yesterday; the economist is my staple, trustworthy magazine that represents the last bastion of capitalism, and even they have joined the bandwagon and are giving the think outside the bottle campaign airtime.

Here is the link to the Think outside the Bottle Capmpaign"

This campiagn distrubs me greatly on many levels. Ok Ill get the biased bit out of the way, I see the Bottled Water industry from a personal perspective i.e. knowing people who run family owned Springs and the small brands that will cop it the hardest from this Media, attention seeking Beat up.....I am the first to admit the industry has many faults, the largest being the domination of it by Pepsi, Coca Cola and the other monoliths that are buying up springs - yes they are cheaper now thanks - BUT do these guys actually think when they say, In america 50% of the bottled water market is dominated by 3 companies, Pepsi, Coke and Nestle...OK you Geniuses what about the OTHER 50% They are small family/owned/run operations, peoples dreams, aspirations, livlihoods. Don't these corporate crusaders think? Or do they just get caught up in the campaign they are told to mount that they forget there are some little guys out there that will get caught in their crossfire?

The question I have is does anyone have the right to think that they can destroy an industry? The fact of Capitalism is if you don't want to buy something, simply don't we all have that freedom. Why should any one man think he is good enough to destroy people's livlihoods and in some cases life long dream and aspirations? I read a great Orble post yesterday by Brenton

http://www.blipblog.net/moral/

about moral questions surrounding Blogs and bloggers but the context was broad enough to embrace every day ethics. Is it Ethical for someone in a position of power to actively seek to destroy an industry? Does this constitute an abuse of power? I mean honestly a bottle of water is no worse than any other Beverage .Ok so on face value the product comes from a Natural spring but a lot of water bottlers add supplements, remove bacteriea, have spent millions on technology to sanitise it with oxygen so there are no chemicals involved in the entire process and much more There is a lot more behind the average water company than simply sticking water in a bottle, and in some cases probably a lot more to it than adding some sugar syrup to the very same water and a few bubbles and calling it Pepsi!!!!!!!!

Having successfully popularised gay marriage, San Francisco’s charismatic young mayor, Gavin Newsom, is now trying to achieve the opposite impact on bottled water:Economist Magazine, link below

Most disappointing to me is Gavin Newsome joining the crusade: Legailising Gay marriage was a POSITIVE and worthy crusade, I am very disappointed that a man who could do great things decides to do something negative like this for his next crusade. Let's see how he feels when the familys of broke Spring Water families come camping on his door step. The greatest irony is: These people will be forced to sell out to the big boys. In a year coke will spend $100m on an Ad campaign and all the sheep that jump on the anti-water campaign will buy it all over again, this time there will be no good waters, just all the crap owned by the big boys and then well, he will have an argument.

Here is the economist article LINK

. The part about the bad mile at the end is interesting. The title is deceptivley negative it is a fairly balanced synopsis of the industry otherwise.

Rant over. Someone has to stick up for them. - This time I know i'll get crucified, not by Orblers but the think outside the bottlers will find me on Google and yahoo and hunt me down.........