Whether it's solar powered, plant-based or canned, packaged water at events is wasteful!
We’ll follow this post up with reusable hydration options at events.
You’d think that bottled water companies have made enough money over the UAE’s 50 years (#uae50) and can call it quits and invest their profits elsewhere, but new water bottling companies pop up and are in it for the UAE’s market share. And if local bottled water didn’t exist, there are French, Italian, English, Turkish and other international brands being shipped (think emissions from Fiji for example) into the UAE on a regular basis.
In a country where fossil fuels are used to desalinate our tap water, we shouldn’t be bragging about a solar powered water bottling factory (Mai Dubai), a plant-based plastic water bottle (Al Ain) which requires industrial composting, a multi-layered engineering marvel of a "carton" (Oasis), or canned water (Aquafina). Bragging about depleting our water table (Masafi) is out of the question too.
Any recycling company which is partnering with a water bottling company is in the business of defending environmental abuses to make money. What’s worse? Having school students do the dirty work for them by collecting clean water packaging instead of having to pay for it at a waste sorting facility.
With events in the UAE going back to full capacity we’re at our wit’s end.