August 15, 2007

Brita, Nalgene Take Advantage Of Bottled Water Backlash

Brita and Nalgene Outdoor Products are teaming up to help reduce bottled water waste by getting people to take a pledge to stop drinking bottled water. The companies have launched a website, www.FilterForGood.com, where consumers can pledge to switch to a reusable water bottle filled with home-filtered water - and purchase Nalgene and Brita products.

It’s an interesting partnership, and a more interesting marketing campaign, with Brita selling the water filtration products and Nalgene selling the reusable water bottles. The timing can’t be better, with bottled water taking a beating lately in the press. For example, check out this article from The New York Times and this one from Fast Company.

San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom recently issued an executive order prohibiting city departments from buying bottled water. Chicago is talking about a bottled water tax.

For each Nalgene, FilterForGood refillable bottle purchased between now and the end of the year, a $4 donation, up to $25,000, will be made to the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people by 2027.

This isn’t the first environmental campaign from Nalgene. Last year, it launched Refill Not Landfill, a similar campaign that also involved a pledge.

Nalgene and Brita aren’t the only companies that could benefit from the bottled water backlash. Sigg USA, which competes with Nalgene, promotes its reusable aluminum bottles as eco-friendly and stylish — “It’s not what you drink,” the Sigg slogan goes, “it’s what you drink it in” — has seen sales shoot up 200 percent in the last three months, said Steve Wasik, the company’s general manager, The LA Times reports.

At New York Fashion Week in September, runway models and stylists working for seven designers will carry Siggs filled with tap water under a deal inked with Aveda, a unit of Estee Lauder that is sponsoring the enterprise.

Here are some statistics from Britta and Nalgene:

• Of the 50 billion plastic water bottles used by Americans in 2006, 38 billion of them were thrown away, unrecycled.
• Last year, the average American used 167 water bottles, but only recycled 38. 
• More than 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away every day in the U.S.   

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