The British consumer is driven by heavy advertising promotions, false ideas about the health benefits of water in bottles, convenience and most importantly price. There is no need to buy bottles of water in the UK because we have some of the cleanest tap water in the world and the water industry is anwerable to government via The Chief Inspector of Drinking Water. The bottled water industry makes some people extremely rich. Chinas richest man owns Nongfu Spring, a bottle water company. In the UK it is a growing industry comprising of the likes of Nestle, Coca– Cola and Princes Ltd worth £1.6bn a year but we are no longer in the EU so the UK can set its own rules.
The bottled water industry needs to be curbed because water is precious. I believe that consumer demand which is artifically inflated, can be curtailed by doubling the price of a bottle of water to a minimum price and taxing it at 55% so that the revenue generated can go towards improving the UKs woeful recycling rates and ring fencing that money to create a national approach to dealing with waste which is robust and circular and creates a legally binding use of resources such as plastic. Promotions should be banned. It cannot be right that so much energy and industry is invested in one product that takes water from the earth, which is a basic human need, and sells it by the bottle to create a gushing foundation of profits for a few multi national companies. The UK does not need bottled water but we do need a cleaner environment and a more sustainable approach to dealing with the mountains of plastic waste that we generate every second of the day. It is no longer acceptable for companies to use virgin plastic in their products when the world is drowning in used plastic that could be brought back into the system. This land is covered in plastic bottles stamped with the corporate logo of big companies who claim to be environmentally conscious but they take no responsibility for the end life of their products. I would also argue that water is a human neccessity that no PLC company should control and that nobody should profit from water as it is immoral.
In 2021, there can be no more timid tinkering with a system that rewards the pollutors and allows them to wreck this planet. Plastic bottles are a scourge. I want them removed and I want the government to create laws that enforce the good stewardship of this earth for the greater good and for the generations to come.
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