Our Workplace Bottled Water Controversy

Since 2004, my workplace has provided a nice perk of free bottled water in our pantry. I believe that it came in response to many people ordering bottled water for themselves on the company's tab. Buying in bulk was cheaper, after all, and given our healthcare company background, it would seem reasonable to encourage more drinking of water given its health benefits. Some egghead probably argued that if free bottled water increased water consumption and thus better health and thus less absenteeism leading to $X millions in saved labor productivity, it was worth us having the water.

As the years went on, colleagues have wondered when this perk would be eliminated based on the presumably high cost. While we surely weren't being charged $1 a bottle, ample supply to quench the thirst of 5000 or so on a daily basis seemed like and expensive proposition. But while other perks slowly disappeared, the bottled water stuck around.

Recently, I had a friend visit me at my office, and he refused my offer of bottled water on ethical grounds, citing the environmental damage associated with the packaging, creation, and disposal (even if recycled) of bottled water. It's something that I wasn't completely unfamiliar with. A number of articles have been written citing the negative environmental impact, with pithy examples blasting the harm that Fiji-brand bottled water commerce inflicts upon Fiji's ecosystem.

A small but growing group within our company are beginning to question the rationale of our free bottle water benefit, resulting in a survey sent to all employees in our location gauging comparable willingness to drink water that was filtered from the tap, from a water fountain, or from a communal bottled water cooler. I can only assume that this is part of an evaluation from our site operations group to determine whether we'll stick with this.

In addition, placards were recently mounted on all pantries right over our stacks of bottled water with facts and figures about bottled water. Apparently, our site consumes over 2400 bottles of water per day or more than 600,000 bottles per year. And then came the impact figures, such as the 1000 to 2000 time increase in energy consumption over tap water, and the incremental oil consumption due to American bottled water consumption - enough to fuel three million cars for a year.

Finally, the placard extolled the virtues of New York City tap water, which was lauded as among the best in the world. So good, in fact, that companies are exploring opportunities to bottle it and sell it on the open market.

But what didn't happen was an announcement that the company would stop providing free bottled water.

It seems to be taking a page from a form of evangelical outreach: I'll lay out the facts for you and I'll tell you the ramifications of each choice. The choice should be fairly obvious at the end of the day, but go ahead on choose what you will. And a cynic might add: you'll just feel really guilty if you choose wrong.

I still drink the bottled water.