Bottled Water Sales Can Be Slowed Further If Wisconsin Approves A Strong Great Lakes Compact

Bottled water sales are still rising, but at a slower pace, The Detroit News tells us.

But it still takes millions of barrels of oil (at 42 gallons a barrel) to produce the plastic in the water bottles that do not get recycled, while tap water, certainly from municipal water treatment systems, is a perfectly acceptable and far cheaper alternative.

That message is getting wider distribution.

The good news also is that bottlers are scrambling to deal with the negative publicity that has begun to seep into the issue and has figured out a way to use less petroleum-derived plastic in their bottles.

The issue is particularly relevant in the Great Lakes region, where bottlers like Nestle will be allowed under the draft Great Lakes Compact to continue to export bottled water from the Great Lakes watershed in containers smaller than 5.7 gallons (20 liters).

Wisconsin activists are pushing to close that loophole; unfortunately, the Wisconsin legislature has no bill before it that would implement the Compact.

Business interests and their political allies in Waukesha County, wanting diversion standards in the draft Compact watered-down or eliminated, kept a legislative study committee from earlier this year from drafting a proposed bill.

Nestle's "Ice Mountain" brand uses water from a Michigan wetlands stream as the supply it bottles in the Great Lakes area, and the bottles can be shipped far from the Great Lakes.

That means water from the Lake Michigan basin is lost permanently to a bottle-by-bottle diversion - - which is why that loophole needs to be closed.

That will happen only if the legislature adopts a strong Compact that closes the loophole - - an outcome that will require the legislature to put regional water conservation at the top of its priorities.