The American National Association for PET Container Resources recently concluded a study that has found that recycled PET saves energy and generates less greenhouse gas. The report also concludes that incorporating recycled PET resin from plastic bottles into new containers reduces the environmental footprint of that package significantly.

Bottled Water companies are beginning to offer water bottles made from recycled bottled water bottles. At Bottled Water Store.com, private label bottled water can be found packed in new RPET recycled plastic bottles. These products have proven to be highly popular already in the short time since they have been introduced.

I am a big fan of recycling and reusing plastic bottles. Especially bottled water bottles. Recycling plastic has been going on for a long time but recently I learned of two novel ways used plastic bottles are being turned into new products. Well, the first one isn't exactly about turning water bottles into something different. It's about turning a water bottle, or bottles, into water bottles. A California company that specializes in private label bottled water now produces water bottles made from recycled water bottles. The product is called RPET and is 100% recycled plastic water bottles. You can see and learn more about these at Bottled Water Store.com.

And for for something completely different. I read about this in a recent issue of  Time magazine. Nine World Cup soccer teams wore uniforms made from recycled plastic bottles. Nike, Coke and Reebok are leading this new fashion trend. And, according to the article author Joel Stein, the uniforms are especially soft and very comfortable. And Nike says that the uniforms are lighter, sturdier, and breathier than and other Nike uniform shirt that has come before. And they are made solely out of plastic! Coca-Cola's shirts are made of half plastic and half cotton are are may be even softer than Nike.

In the future, look for of these shirts and uniforms on sale at boutique stores and at Wal-mart. Also, Reebok will soon be collecting bottles from NFL and NHL games and turning them into shirts to sell to fans.

July 4th is a great American holiday and the milestone event of summer months. America's birthday is jubilant and exciting with barbecue, picnics, party's and fireworks. And lets not forget Bottled Water.

July 4th really kicks off the summer vacation season which is, especially this year, extremely hot. I just returned from a few days vacation in Washington DC where my family and I toured all of the great capital government buildings and monuments. We also watched the National July 4th parade. The temparature was 100+ degrees! Was it ever hot. There must have been a million people in DC last week end. The streets were packed and everyone was dealing as best they could with the heat. Thankfully, there were bottled water vendors everywhere. Really, everywhere. Apparently the July 4th holiday is a great opportunity for street vendors and people who might not normally sell things on the street, to sell bottled water. You could see them everywhere hauling coolers and cases of bottled water to "hot" spots on the capital streets. Very often they had their children in tow. For some vendors this was a family affair and an opportunity not to miss.

From time to time I couldn't help but think that the July 4th parade and the entire week-end might not have possible without bottled water. The only way to survive last week end was to stay hydrated. I have blogged many times on the insanity of considering a ban on bottled water. This was proof right before my eyes of how right I am. Bottled Water is a product and service that everyone wants. The city also impressed me with the way that they collected the empties. They had people walking through the crowds with large plastic bags collecting the empties and staging them in designated areas so that the could be picked up later by trucks.

My hat is off to DC. They endorsed a way for citizens to produce some income. They made sure that their visitors were properly hydrated and they efficiently cleaned the streets and recycled the bottles.

The past year has seen bottled water companies announcing various ways to reduce the carbon footprint of bottled water bottles. We now have "Environmentally Friendly" bio-degradable bottles, bottles with reduced volumes of plastic material, and recycled plastic bottles.

Now the latest development comes from a South African company, Stora Enso. The new product, called NeoSet, is a full wet strength paper label that contains "post-consumer-waste" (recycled) (PCW) fiber.

NeoSet is a one-side coated wet strength label containing a high percentage of PCW-fibers. It meets all the requirements of label papers specifically used for the production of labels for water and soft drink bottles. NeoSet is produced at Stora Enso's Uetersen Mill in Germany.

"With NeoSet we respond to the growing interest from brand owners in packaging solutions with further improved ecological efficiency characteristics," says Eckhard Kallies, VP for Packaging Papers. "We improve the environmental profile by replacing a high percentage of virgin fiber with post-consumer-waste content.

The study found:

• Measurement based on British Thermal Units (BTUs) indicates that the energy consumed to produce small-pack bottled water containers (from 8oz to 2.5 gallons) amounted to only 0.067% of the total energy use in the US in 2007. Home and Office Delivery (HOD) bottled water (reusable bottles from 2.5 to 5 gallons) energy consumption only amounted to 0.003% of the total energy used in the US in 2007.
• The small-pack and HOD bottled water industries’ combined greenhouse gas/CO2 emissions amounted to only 0.08% of total US greenhouse gas emissions.
• Bottled water packaging discards accounted for only 0.64% of the 169m tonnes of total US Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) discards in 2007.
• The process and transportation BTU energy use for the bottled water industry was only 0.07% of total US BTU primary energy consumption.
• Greenhouse gas emissions per half-gallon of single-serve bottled water came to 426.4g CO2 equivalent, which is 75% less CO2 eq per half-gallon than orange juice.
• Small-pack bottled water generates 46% less CO2 eq when compared to soft drinks also packaged in PET plastic.

Franklin Associates, a division of ERG, produced the LCI and prepared a report that quantified the energy requirements, solid waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions for the production, packaging, transport and end-of-life management for bottled water consumed in the US in 2007.

According to a 2008 Beverage Marketing Corporation report, total consumption of bottled water in the US in 2007 was 8.8bn gallons.

The environmentally aware actions of many bottled water companies – such as the use of more recycled PET (rPET) in their bottle production, increasing recycling rates, and enhanced lightweighting – have positively impacted the environmental footprint of the industry.

Another recent study confirms the bottled water industry’s very small environmental footprint. On 2 March 2010, Nestlé Waters North America, an IBWA member, released peer-reviewed findings on its environmental footprint in a study conducted by Quantis International.

Key findings from the study include:

• Water is the least environmentally ‘impactful’ beverage option.
• Tap water has lightest footprint, followed by tap water consumed in reusable bottles (if used more than 10 times), and then by bottled water.
• Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible packaged drink choice.
• Sports drinks, enhanced waters and soda produce nearly 50% more carbon dioxide emissions per serving than bottled water.
• Juice, beer and milk produce nearly three times as many carbon dioxide emissions per serving than bottled water.
• Milk, coffee, beer, wine and juice together comprise 28% of a consumer’s total beverage consumption, but represent 58% of climate change impact.

Source: International Bottled Water Association

More Info: Bottled Water Store.com

The newest entry into the world of "Green" bottled water products is "Planet Green". What makes it green is it's bottle. It is made entirely of plant material, including corn. The bottle is 100% biodegradable, as long as it is returned to the manufacturer for special composting.

The water itself is highly purified using a process very similar to Smartwater. Filtration, deionization, reverse osmosis, vapor distillation and ozonation. Then minerals are added for taste. I wonder if Planet Green makes you as smart as Smartwater does?

The bottlers want you to be real smart and stop buying water packaged in petroleum based plastic bottles. They say that by drinking their water you will help reduce global warming, carbon emissions and our dependency on oil.

Green Planet is now available on-line at bottledwaterstore.com.

Custom label bottled water is a very popular form of advertising. Many companies, large and small find that custom label bottled water is an inexpensive way to advertise their company and their products. The average cost of a custom labels bottle of water is approximately $0.40. Compare this to other advertising specialty products and you will see that the cost is actually quite low. A distinct advantage is that in additional to incorporating a company logo, which is all that is allowed on many ad specialty items like pens, letter openers, tape measures, bottle labels can have all kinds of text messages. Astute marketer can include on their labels telephone numbers, addresses, web sites, promotional messages and much more.

But customizing bottled water is not just for business. Churches and other faith based groups utilize their own private labeled bottled water to announce services and spread the word of the lord. Other non-profit groups such as baseball leagues, soccer leagues, cheer leading organizations, schools,  use this ad medium for fund raising.  And civic groups such as towns and cities customize bottled water labels with messages to promote causes of interest.

Custom label bottled water is a cost efficient means for marketing and promotion.

New bottled water products are launched all the time. There are probably two dozen a year. Sadly, or luckily,depending on the product, most of these fail or disappear within months. But there is one product became  highly successful but has won the hearts and minds of the American bottled water consumer. That product is Glaceau "Smartwater".

Smartwater was launched approximately 5 years ago along with Glaceau's other successful product line of Vitamin waters. But Smartwater is the purified water product with added electrolytes (calcium and magnesium additives) that promises to make you smart if you drink it. How can you go wrong with a promise like that. And thousands over the years have accepted the challenge.

The original bottles included a "Genius" meter printed on the side of the bottle. The more you drank the smarter you became and when the bottle was empty the meter indicated that you reached genius level. Very cute. Very creative.

Smartwater continues to be a huge selling product for the Coca Cola company which purchased the product line from Energy Brands in 2007. Smartwater can be found in many retail stores and also on-line at Bottled Water Store.com<a href="http://www.bottledwaterstore.com/smartwater.htm"></a>. Smartwater is the best selling product at Bottled Water Store.com. Customers like to have cases delivered to their door at home or work and often purchased Smartwater as gifts.

Bottled water is the only source of competition for municipal water treatment services. Sometimes it's price is criticized as too high because it is vastly more expensive per liter than municipal drinking water. But the price is often attacked as too low because it does not include the environmental cost of the plastic containers. Ideally, bottled beverages and goods of all kinds should include the environmental costs of the products. It is nonsensical to ban plastic water bottles but not to ban plastic bottles of Coke or Pepsi. For that matter, consider all of the products we all purchase consistantly and packaged in plastic that after use goes directly into the trash.

Bottled water and municipal water is highly regulated yet the quality of municipal as well as rural drinking water is not consistent across the country. The potential result of banning bottled water would be to eliminate choice for consumers.

Hardly a week goes by that I don't get an Email or a comment to a blog from someone who is anti bottled water. It is of course perfectly respectable to have an opinion pro or con about anything but what usually happens is that, in the end, the writer is just pushing a product of some sort. These are usually water filters, RO systems, tap water etc. Please don't misunderstand stand me, these are wonderful products and I am involved with all of them, more than you would think. So it is that when the writer recommends the end of bottled water for much overplayed reasons, I cant help but become dismayed. That is because not one of the substitutions for bottled water has ever saved lives in an emergency, such as a hurricane or flood.

A town in Palm Beach County Florida has what is being referred to as a "cancer cluster" because of an unusually high incidence of and deaths from various forms of brain cancer. All of the homes in this community get their water from private wells. These wells have been tested to determine if the water is the cause of the problems. For the most part the wells tested negative for most potential cancer causing cataminates. A small sampling of the wells did have elevated levels of radium or radioactive alpha particles. Much of our water throught out the country contains various levels if radium-226 or 228 but typically in amounts well below EPA standards. The radium in the ground water is being investigated as a potential source of the health problem.

On Thursday the community received a visit from one of Americas most famous consumer advocate and  anti-pollution crusader Erin Brockovitch. Remember the oscar winning movie starring Julia Roberts?

Ms Brockovitch's advise to the residents of this village in turmoil was to remain calm and to try not to panic while the she and the state agencies work to determine the cause of the problem. She advised everyone at the meeting to take short showers and "Drink Bottled Water".

For more about how important bottled water is for our society, check out another story about bottled water saving lives, just this week, at www.bottledwaterstories.blogspot.com.