Further fieldwork: A focus group about water

A great way of finding out what people think about anything is by leading a focus groups, or group interviews. As a public relations major, I know that good common ideas and useful information will come about from my spending one afternoon with a few focus group members. 

Last month, I sat down to brainstorm ideas about tap water and bottled water with a group of about 7 volunteers, only one of whom I'd previously known. As organizations like Tappening represent anti-bottled water causes, I wondered how effective these organizations might be in promoting the cause. Maybe the Nestle Waters giant is unstoppable.

Conducting the Focus Group

In the focus group I did - my first ever - I had about 7 Boston University students volunteer to participate for one hour. Luckily, these volunteers had moved to Boston from different regions of the U.S., allowing me a better random sample of the public that I might try to understand.

My hour-long focus group included questions about the respondents’ general views about buying bottled water and using tap water, their opinions about brand loyalty and bottled water brand advertising and their priorities about health and environmental issues. Respondents were even describing the particular bottled water brands they find most appealing - amazingly, Poland Spring and smartwater emerged as frontrunners. I couldn't exactly pinpoint why the focus members preferred these brands, but they did... I guessed Poland Spring from good branding and habit, and smartwater from its trendiness factor. But I pushed some more. It didn't seem like these volunteers were completely loyal to drinking bottled water, or to any bottled water brand at all.

I collected a good amount of  info about consumer preferences and habits, and I received much input from the respondents about how tap or bottled water can be made more or less appealing. Learning from one another and inspiring each others’ ideas, the focus group

members developed pretty honest opinions about the bottled water industry, tap water and overall water safety. They said tap water was dirty, but rather preferred the tacky words like "crisp" and "refreshing" that every Dasani or Deer Park ad tries to engrain in our opinions- apparently, not in vain. Yes, price was important to these volunteers, but trendiness was more important. Group opinion, overall, was really important. The respondents seemed to want to show consumer responsibility to one another and rationality for shotty marketing techniques... but they were caught. They criticized Jennifer Aniston's
smartwater ads, but you better believe they all recalled the ads without my having them there that day. You better believe most of the volunteers had bought smartwater at some point. 

Celebrities and trends definitely do act to pull consumers into buying bottled water. Remember the days when drinking Evian bottled water was shi shi and only for celebrities in 90210? In less than a decade, Evian's gone proletariate... but the celebrities lead the packs in this industry.

Notable Findings

During my one hour, I heard a great amount of evidence that some consumers do also choose bottled water products based on habit or from familiarity. If one individual’s parents often bought Poland Spring bottled water, that individual tended to report buying Poland Spring when away from her parents. Participants also tended to buy bottled water if their peers and families have had the habits of buying bottled water in past years. Likewise, if the volunteers had grown up drinking tap water, they later continued to drink tap water and Brita-filtered tap water.

Those in the focus group recalled multiple bottled water advertisements in the media; this was evidence, too, that consumers have a high exposure to bottled water companies’ marketing ploys. Some participants, though, recalled campaigns supporting environmentalist and health campaigns concerning bottled and tap water. This was evidence that the public may be primed with some information about the controversies pertaining to water products, like environmental issues. The one friend I had in the focus group, however, was the only one who knew about BPA as a health risk. I wonder how. Drinking bottled water poses health risks too, people!

Suggestions for the Future

If anyone out there would like to piggyback off my initial focus group endeavor, it could be helpful to conduct more focus groups about some of the more pointed issues we talked about in this first focus group. While recycling habits was only one topic we discussed here, you might conduct a future session strictly about respondents’ knowledge about recycling and environmental effects; this might help ad or pr buffs learn more about how pro-environment claims persuade consumers. Tappening could especially use this advice, my god. Please refer to their horribly elementary and overall ineffective ad campaign. Good for a laugh, not good for cause mobilization.

Similarly, you might conduct a future focus group only about the health concerns entailed with drinking tap or bottled water. The respondents might find differences in the information they have heard reported in the media, and researchers can learn which persuasion tactics have might already affected publics to prefer or avoid tap or bottled water.

We need to know what people know. At times during this focus group, I was shocked to be reminded how normal consumers still think. Jennifer Aniston sells. And to rebuttal, measly NGOs and organizations create ads with cartoons of crying polar bears. Ineffective. I'm ashamed.

Water Survey

I wanted to know what people know

On September 23 through 25, I officially surveyed five of my college-age compadres to understand their knowledge of plastic water bottle waste, tap water safety, and other water-related topics. I asked each of these individuals, none of whom knew one another or attended the same school, the same list of open-ended questions. The survey results yielded what I had anticipated: a wide spectrum of knowledge about safe water materials and products. All names have been changed to preserve anonymity from the public. 

For my initial question I asked, “What comes to mind when you think of ‘pro-safe water activism?’” Most interviewees showed embarrassment for not recognizing this phrase, perhaps from a campaign or political movement. I had, however, invented this wording to find what imagery they conceived when thinking about water issues. Daisy, currently living in Ann Arbor, MI, imagined the elimination of tap water chemicals harming human health. Holden, of St. Clair Shores, MI, instead envisioned shoreline cleanups and the decontamination of drinkable water. Osmosis Jones, of Chesterfield, MI, also imagined the cleaning water for health and environmental purposes. Hanni, of Boston, MA, admitted that the phrase prompted her to imagine giving bottled water to young African children.

When I asked the interviewees to compare their tap water use to their bottled water consumption, most interviewees responded with some criticism for bottled water but admitted to drinking some bottled water. Hanni claimed bottled water companies “scam” customers by consuming global resources like oil and overcharging for their products, but she drinks bottled water when someone else conveniently buys or gives her the bottle. Osmosis Jones also admitted to the convenience of buying bottled water, especially when he loses old bottles by forgetting to bring them home to refill. Paige, who is studying in Israel these days, said she thinks we should be refilling our plastic bottles more often with tap water. Daisy, countering Paige’s statement, brought up research that reusing plastics, especially if the material had been heated, could cause negative health effects. She also claimed that much bottled water is simply bottled tap water, with no additional purification. Daisy drinks mostly tap water.

Holden claimed that tap water is too often dangerous for human consumption. He, along with three others, expressed concerns for many U.S. regions’ inadequate environmental protections and standards. Daisy claimed that politics have caused regions’ incompliance with clean water standards or their inabilities to meet them. Holden and Osmosis Jones sited the issue of prescription drugs entering tap water supplies. They both explain their knowledge that the public lacks education about recycled water and cities’ constant recycling of the same water. As Osmosis Jones said, “Our tap water comes from other peoples’ poop water. Which is gross. So they treat it with chlorine, which is also gross.” Hanni also mentioned the chlorine and fluoride that municipalities pump into water to clean it. Four of these five interviewees had learned the same facts about how local tap water is reused and treated.

The interviewees differed, however, on the extents to which they recycled in their respective cities. Daisy, Hanni and Osmosis Jones spoke about recycling in convenient locations. Ann Arbor provides students with recycle bins and collects them each week. Hanni seeks locations on campus to recycle before she leaves, as her off-campus home has no recycling service. Osmosis Jones, without any recycling service in his new condominium complex, now recycles less than he had when he had a city recycling service. Holden, however, drives to facilities to recycle #5 plastics, which his city will not collect. All interviewees wanted to recycle plastics and other products, including glass, office paper, cardboard, cans, etc. Only one interviewee made extra efforts to recycle materials that no city recycling service was collecting.

While all of the interviewees did show concern for bottled water’s environmental effects, most did site health risks caused by tap, but not bottled, water. Holden, Osmosis Jones, and Daisy, when discussing the risks of ingesting water, only worried about contaminated, inadequately purified tap water. Hanni was the only interviewee who cited research that bottled water can cause health issues among consumers. Paige was the only one who did not believe tap or bottled water proposed health risks. Overall, the interviewees’ explanations of health risks were more vague or inaccurate than their responses about environmental issues.

When I asked the interviewees to compare their priorities for personal health and environmental protection against one another, most interviewees agreed that they prioritize health issues above environmental issues. Paige said she does not pay attention to these risks. Holden explained, however, that consumers may increasingly take environmental risks into considerations when making decisions about their health. A few years ago, he explained, the production of Albuterol inhalers was discontinued because of the dangerous chlorofluorocarbons in the medication’s propellant. Consumers began taking different medications altogether without causing a large outcry to continue using Albuterol. Though consumers prioritize health issues, they increasingly prioritize environmental preservation, as well.

Overall, the interviewees were either well-informed or completely carefree about both health and environmental risks associated water. Most were skeptical about tap water’s safety to the body while trusting bottled water more. They did, however, accurately site more information about bottled water’s harm to the environment. While the interviewees claimed they prioritized personal health over environmental protection, begging the anticipation that they would avoid the tap and choose bottled water instead, about half the interviewees still found means to self-filter their water and appease both concerns. When too inconvenienced to recycle or filter their own water, however, most of those interviewed would rather just drink bottled water.

Other great comments I couldn’t edit and keep the full value of

It's ridiculous to me that we're living in The Great Lakes State, but we won't life a finger or spend a penny to preserve our namesake.

I’ll fill in what I know. I know there was some BPAs leech into the water which is bad for you thing. Also, obviously, plastics consume oils or whatever in the making…

In our buildings, there are separate bins for trash, for bottles, and for paper. In Ann Arbor, given that the city makes it so easy, it does bother me when people don’t recycle.

Then there was the whole news sensationalism OMG PRESCRIPTION DRUGS IN YOUR WATER!? Honestly, though, I think its all a crock of crap.

While [landfills are] a bit sickening when I consider, I don’t think about them much.

As a selfish human being, I think about how what I do directly affects my health more so than the environment.

We are too wasteful in general and our consumerism only makes matters worse. Not only do companies need to cut down on unnecessary packaging, but we need to cut back on shopping.

[Problems about tap water include] contamination of reservoirs with E.Coli, etc. forcing boil orders or bans. Also, the adding of chemicals to the water either to clean the water (chlorine) or to use it as a mass vitamin dispenser (fluoride). Both of which can be hazardous to some of the population, especially in excess. (I don't know if this is still an actual problem, but it's definitely still a perceived one)

I HATE it when people don't recycle, especially when there's a bin right there.

I consume a toxin. I get sick maybe 3 weeks later. Yikes. I throw 7 water bottles out a week. I dont ever notice any effect from my actions alone, but they have a combined effect we tend to overlook I think.

As far as buying a product that helps me but might even harm the environment, it’s really a case-by-case judgment call. Is it wrinkle cream? If it is, does killing a blade of grass for every 10000 cases make it worth it? Maybe. Does killing a tree for every 10000 cases make it worth it? Maybe not. But lets say its a cancer drug. Now would it be worth it if it killed 10 trees for every case? Maybe. Its really a tough call.

More BPA, more bottled water

First, a special thank you to HoMedics for extending an invitation for me to attend their webinar on new home water purification systems. I look forward to learning more about your new technologies and bringing to the public a better piece of mind concerning tap water safety. Now...

Once again, why BPA research should be a priority

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have linked a chemical found in everyday plastics to problems with brain function and mood disorders in monkeys -- the first time the chemical has been connected to health problems in primates.

Previously, all BPA research had been conducted on mice. Refer to previous entries explaining why human subjects were inadequate for testing.

The study is the latest in an accumulation of research that has raises concerns about bisphenol A, or BPA, a compound that gives a shatterproof quality to polycarbonate plastic and has been found to leach from plastic into food and water. The Yale study comes as federal toxicologists yesterday reaffirmed an earlier draft report finding that there is "some concern" that bisphenol A can cause developmental problems in the brain and hormonal systems of infants and children.

And as we've gathered from other sources, issues span not only developmental (i.e. irregular puberty) issues, but also obesity, infertility, cancer, and possibly heart disease. 

"There remains considerable uncertainty whether the changes seen in the animal studies are directly applicable to humans, and whether they would result in clear adverse health effects," John R. Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, said in a statement. "But we have concluded that the possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed."

Now that we've moved on to test subjects that can constitute as some of our specie's close cousins, we need to stop dismissing the idea that BPA could be harmless to us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303397.html

I leave you with a fun fact about bottled water

From a 2006 report:

On a per capita basis, Italians actually have the highest rate of bottled water consumption, drinking 184 liters on average in 2004; this is more than two glasses of bottled water each day. In second and third place came Mexico and the United Arab Emirates, drinking 169 and 164 liters on average. Belgium (exluding Luxemboug) and France came up close too, drinking about 145 liters per person per year.

http://www.container-recycling.org/media/newsarticles/plastic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.htm

A reminder of why we should still drink tap water

Bringing it all together

This post will be bringing together new information with some snippets from past entries to reinforce why we choose to drink tap water. Some reports in the media have come out in the past couple weeks that may urge us back to the bottle. We stay strong and healthy by choosing tap, and here’s why.

Controversy about tap water

On September 13, just last week, the New York Times published “Clean Water Laws Neglected, at a Cost,” exposing the United States’ noncompliance with the Clean Water Act. This act, enacted in 1972, establishes regulations for states and companies to follow when affecting, through pollution, the chemical, physical, and biological

makeup of bodies of water surrounding them. The Times article reveals that regulators have ignored companies’ extreme violations of the Clean Water Act, therefore increasing the amount of dangerous pollutants in communities’ drinking water. Renegade journalist Charles Duhigg outlines how individuals’ exposure to illegal concentrations of many of these materials, including lead, nickel, copper, zinc, chlorine, and selenium, may contribute to higher occurrences of cancer, mental retardation, skin rashes, tooth decay, and stomach ulcers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/lcwa.html

EPA’s action for clean water

Lisa Jackson, the new administrator of the EPA and subject whom I often admire in this forum, has already addressed the issue of water safety. Since President Obama appointed Jackson to her position within the EPA, the regulating body for the Clean Water Act, Jackson has requested supplemental appropriations to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. For the fund, Jackson has requested $2.4 billion from Congress’s appropriations for the 2010 fiscal year; this is $1.7 billion more than what the fund received in 2009. With these appropriations, Jackson claims the EPA will be enabled to direct cost-effective and environmentally positive efforts to repair and better manage clean water facilities in U.S. communities.

http://www.epa.gov/ocir/hearings/testimony/111_2009_2010/2009_0616_lpj.pdf

Studies have often, often found that tap water is no worse than bottled water

In 2005, ABC’s 20/20 recruited microbiologists to compare the materials, including bacteria, within tap water to those materials within bottled water. Finding no difference between New York City tap water and bottled water, these scientists recommended that individuals consume tap water, which can cost up to 500 times less money than bottled water.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/Story?id=728070&page=1

Drinking tap water saves our environment, after all

As I’ve more recently posted, between 2005 and 2008, Americans increased their plastic water bottle consumption by 59 percent and pumped $5.9 billion into the bottled water industry. Of American consumers, up to 70 percent claim to drink bottled water. Beverage Marketing Corp. reports that these consumers drank 8.7 billion gallons of bottled water in 2008 and 8.8 billion in 2007. These figures respectively amount to 29 and 28.5 gallons per capita. Huge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203074.html

This rate of bottled water consumption is harmful to the globe and our dwindling natural resources. Food & Water Watch also reports that bottled water manufacturers and distributors use over 17 million barrels of oil to produce the bottled water that Americans consume in one year. This amount of oil, which would be enough to fuel one million cars per year, is further wasted by consumers’ refusal to recycle these plastic bottles. Food & Water Watch claim that consumers throw about 86 percent of these bottles into the trash and, subsequently, into landfills.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203074.html

Pat Franklin, of the Container Recycling Institute, reports that Americans dispose over 60 million plastic bottles into U.S. landfills and incinerators each year. With over 3 thousand functioning landfills and over 10,000 municipal, stagnant landfills existing in the United States, Franklin expresses concern about these landfills’ pollutant-emissions and toxin-leaching into the earth and groundwater.  Landfill liners, he explains, only have the thickness of 1/10 in., which allows for the eventual leaching of the toxin leachate into the ground. Landfill liners, unsustainable after decades of chemical components decaying them and leaching into our earth and air, present a threat to public health and safety.

Health risks of plastics, the real tap alternative

Bottled water consumers’ health risks also occur during the act of drinking water. Franklin mentions that the United States EPA sets more water quality standards for tap water than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) poses for bottled water. Since Franklin’s report, researchers have pinpointed and examined the toxin Bisphenol A (BPA), which appears in most plastic water bottles, leaches into water, and can cause severe health problems for consumers.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-plastics-do-to-your-body.html

 http://www.container-recycling.org/media/newsarticles/plastic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.ht

BPA polycarbonate is used to make common plastic items, including Nalgene™ bottles, dishes, liners of metal cans, baby bottles, and bottled water plastic. The compound BPA is a lab-derived form of estrogen, used commonly to affect the hardness and durability of products it appears in BPA easily leaches into contained water, especially if the plastic container has been refilled, heated, or frozen. Researchers, like Claude Hughes and Frederick S. vom Saal of the University of Missouri-Columbia, have found that by providing unnatural amounts of estrogen to those drinking contaminated water, BPA can be linked to irregular puberty, obesity, infertility, and cancer in both males and females. In lab experiments, these researchers have found that BPA can cause animals’ early puberty and production of pre-cancerous cells. By constantly drinking from bottled water, consumers ingest harmful amounts of the BPA toxin.

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7713/7713.html

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-plastics-do-to-your-body.html

Plastics fester bacteria, remember?

I have already written a full entry about this. Consumers also risk ingesting greater amounts of bacteria by drinking from plastic bottles, especially if these individuals refill and reuse their bottles. An Oregon laboratory tested used plastic water bottles for bacteria colony counts and discovered large rates of bacteria growth, even in bottles that had been scrubbed with soap. A bottle they washed the day before the test grew an average of 2,400 colonies, and one bottle they tested grew over 4,100 bacteria colonies on its surface. The researchers repeatedly found that the plastic surface allowed faster growth of bacteria than other surfaces, such as glass.

http://blog.sierratradingpost.com/in-outdoors-camping-gear-forest-trails/reused-plastic-water-bottles-loaded-with-bacteria/

And by national and state EPA standards, tap water contains fluorine to kill bacteria, and throughout the past decade researchers have periodically found greater amounts of fluorine in tap water than in bottled water. By drinking fluorine-filled tap water from a glass, consumers avoid the risk of ingesting the bacteria that can easily fester inside opened plastic water bottles.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000322090356.htm

Tap water wastes money

American consumers are now reportedly spending less money to buy bottled water, which can be attributed, yes, to the nationwide recession. Nestle, the leading corporation for bottled water sales, has experienced a drop in sales this year for the first time in six years. In the beginning of 2009, profits dropped 2.9 percent across all Nestle bottled water brands: Poland Spring, Deer Park, S. Pellegrino and Perrier. These consumers presumably choose to drink tap water instead. Good call.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203074.html

Reporter Maura Judkis credits anti-plastic bottle campaigns for this turn in consumption. She sites the campaigns

“Take Back the Tap” and “TapIt” that motivate Americans to avoid bottled water and to be more ecologically conscious. These campaigns encourage consumers to invest in BPA-free metal water bottles and water filters for tap water. H₂Ox2, the online company I’ve often sited, provides a forum for bloggers to share research about plastics while selling alternative water container and filtering products. The site sells individual bottle filters for $8.70 and even larger water-capacity filters for $118. American consumers are creating a demand for tap water products, which they are willing to invest in to save money, save their health, or save the environment.

www.h2ox2.com/store/

People are getting informed and bringing it all back to common sense. Buy a filter for your tap water if you’re afraid that your tap water hasn’t be adequately purified. I believe these horrible stories about communities with inadequate regulators. This is why we need to lobby Congress to be pumping money into the EPA for programs like the Clean Water funds and Superfund. And we already see the EPA taking action on existing cases of unpurified tap water sources. The consequences of consuming non-tap water are overwhelming and worth the investment of buying a filter or addressing policy makers for more strict tap water regulations. Drink tap. Tap it. Tap that. Whatever. Tap water is key here. 

Drinking tap water to save dollars

Recession affecting water bottle sales

The greatest motivation for consumers to turn toward or away from products these days is affordability. 

Somehow, not striking enough in past years was the idea that investing in one $20-$30 metal water bottle and one tap water purifier for $20 would save families a ton of money. This move would be sensible. Families buying $20 cases of bottled water each week spend over $1,000 every year on water; individuals even occasionally buying water bottles, perhaps, $5-$10 worth each week, spend about $300-$550 each year.

One $40 investment could have gone a long way.

Yet in her Fresh Greens blog, Maura Judkis discusses consumers’ move during the recession to finally buy fewer water bottles, whether or not these will be reused or replaced by metal alternatives.

The country's largest seller of bottled water, Nestle, has reported a decline of almost 3 percent in its bottled water division (which includes Pellegrino, Poland Spring and Perrier and Deer Park) for the first half of the year.

A revolution, triggered by economic downturn and eventual recovery. Have weot heard this story before? Yes, this is what happens during recessions. We vote in new presidential administrations and stop buying products that pollute our Earth, harm our bodies, are pretty monetarily costly.

…Analysts also credit the decline to environmentalists' campaigns, such as Take Back the Tap and TapIt, to encourage consumers to avoid bottled water. Their encouragement has also led cities from Takoma Park, Md. to San Francisco to cut bottled water out of their budgets, to the tune of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just this week, the Guardian called out the BBC for spending more than $600,000 per year on bottled water.

…. On water. Money simply spent on bottled water.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/fresh-greens/2009/08/13/bottled-water-demand-beginning-to-empty-out.html

On Wednesday (Nestle) reported that profits for the first half of the year dropped 2.7 percent, its first decline in six years.

What not to do

"It's an obvious way to cut back," said Joan Holleran, director of research for market research firm Mintel. "People might still be buying bottled water, but you can bet that they're refilling those bottles."

Obviously people are forgetting and ignoring the health costs of drinking from refilled plastic water bottles. Refer to my earlier posts, especially from April 21, about the dangers of not only drinking from plastics once, but multiple times.

Basically, Think erosion of toxic materials into your body. Each time you leave your water in heated areas, like hot cars, BPA leaches into your water at higher rates. Each time you refill your plastic water bottle, more chemicals like BPA are depleting into the water you drink.

How much we've been spending on bottled water

Sales of bottled water swelled 59 percent to $5.1 billion between 2003 to 2008, making it one of the fastest growing beverages. About 70 percent of consumers say they drink bottled water.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203074.html

Who to blame for this costly trend: the profiting companies, of course

Florida's got a personal interest in the bottled water trend. Like it or not, the state's springs are a major supplier of water to the industry.

… Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi recently cited the shift to tap water "in this downturn" by some of its "casual" beverage drinkers. Pepsi's Aquafina is the country's biggest bottled water brand.

In a tough economy, Pepsi Bottling North America president Robert King recently told analysts, "one of the first things that a shopper can decide to do is consume tap water as opposed to purchasing bottled water."

Bitterness ensued. 

Nestle Waters North America is a major user of Florida's aquifer to bottle water under the Zephyrhills brand. Nestle also sells Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka and Poland Spring among its domestic brands.

A near-monopoly of the most popular water drinks in the country. I’ve yet to find one thing I like about the plastic water bottle industry.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/bottled-water-industry-sales-decrease-during-recession/1028389

A side note: Bling H2O

The website is below, and I’m appalled. Glass bottles of water, blinged out with Swarovski crystals, costing upwards of $500. I don’t know which I can handle less: a female’s nearly naked legs and butt conveniently cushioning a bottle on the main page, or the fact that this is actually a popular product that celebrities buy, or the companies' frequent advertising on the Fox News Channel.

http://www.blingh2o.com/store/index.php

I’d also like to give immense credit to the Washington Post article posted above. Throughout my search for this post, I found nearly verbatim citations of the article by journalists and bloggers across the country. Thanks for supplying our information, Washington Post. 

Birth control packaging: Plastic waste that we can all learn from

An astonishing amount of women takes the pill

The “pill” I refer to is any oral contraceptive medication that alters female users’ hormones and fertility. I’m proud to take it, and my female friends proudly take it, either for birth control, PMDD, or other hormonal concerns. The birth control pill is, relatively, a great thing. An estimated 100 million women around the world take the pill (http://www.contraceptivetechnology.com/table.html), which is astounding considering the other forms of contraception a female can use in her sex life: male condoms, female condoms, diaphragms, contraceptive sponges, spermicide… all this madness.

 Currently mainstream women most so prefer the pill, and a typical conversation in the college dorm room is the comparison of which brands female friends are using (I encourage male friends and male partners into these talks too, as there is absolutely no need for males’ uninvolvement in the pill talks) And quite often, girls compare the hilarious packaging of their pills. The topic of this post: excessive birth control packaging.

 But, first, I’ll address the inquiry that inspired this post: Is the particularly soft plastic of birth control packaging giving me large doses of BPA?

(Refer to my post from Feb. 12 for an explanation of the BPA toxin) Well, I’ve done some sporadic online investigating over these months and have found, really, little information on this issue. It’s an important matter for scientists to investigate: with the pill already hyping females’ hormones, the addition of BPA, a synthetic form of estrogen, might significantly alter the intended effects of the pill. Maybe your girlfriend’s appetite was heightened not from the pill, but from the BPA’s bad interaction with the pill. Maybe we could have avoided our exponentially worse menstruation cramps while taking the pill, ladies. Researchers, please visit this inquiry in your labs. I might be getting angry without needing to.

Look at pill packaging

It’s an insane amount of plastic that producers add to the pill, allegedly to remind women to take their pill at the same time every day. PBS compiled a great history of pill packaging and reports:

The first prescription drug for healthy patients, the Pill neither treated nor prevented disease. Instead, taken daily, it prevented pregnancy by changing the hormonal balance in women's bodies. The Pill far surpassed other contraceptive methods, except abstinence, in effectiveness. All a woman had to do was remember to take it every day. Pill packages quickly evolved to remind women to take their daily doses.

The site also features images from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, showing the evolution of this incredibly excessive packaging. Click this link for all the pictures, it’s worth looking at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/gallery/index.html

Pill packaging is not at all sustainable

Pill users usually don’t recycle all this plastic, which includes the packets, the cases, everything. I never before stopped to consider throwing my pill materials into the recycling bin in my apartment, along with papers, old gladware, beer bottles, etc. No pill packets to be seen. Well, this is an incredible waste that ends up in landfills.

Sustainableday.com’s blogger and reporter “Stiven” comments:

Just yesterday I went into a pharmacy to buy: chapstick, floss, and pick up my wife's birth control…The birth control pills are really out of hand, they come in: a paper bag with the receipt, copy of the prescription and a coupon flier stapled to the outside of the bag, inside you find a colorful heavy cardboard box containing another plastic and foil dispenser, a not so small manual describing use, and a separate fuzzy purple plastic little booklet caring case. I felt incredibly guilty as I threw all this excess packaging "away" in the garbage right outside the store... All I wanted was healthy teeth, unchaped lips, and birth control but we can't have any of that without senseless pollution these days. We need packaging reform! (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005634.html)

 Sing it, homie. We do need packaging reform, especially with health products. Go figure. Unhealthy human, unhealthy Earth.

 Sustainable Life guest blogger Anne Morgan writes about her move from the U.S. to Sweden. She was pleasantly surprised by her much-less-humiliating birth control, more discreetly packaged:

The reasonably-packaged Swedish birth control came in a blister pack with an unassuming, reusable, recyclable cardboard sheath. I received four sheaths for the year’s supply. In sharp contrast, my new American birth control is dispensed via a giant blister pack with a completely superfluous pink plastic case thingie and a pink vinyl sheath. I received 12 cases and sheaths for the year’s supply because heaven forbid we reuse the outrageous over-packaging.

 After I use up my prescription I’ll be switching to something with a smaller footprint that I’m less embarrassed to keep on my nightstand. And (my old pill company) will be receiving a letter from me accompanied by my year’s supply of birth control packaging. I’ll be damned if it’s going to MY landfill!  (http://michellemckay.typepad.com/sustainablelife/2007/10/overpacking-bir.html)

And the rest of us women can relate.

What can we do?

We should be writing to our pill providers. Women can vow to set our cell phone alarms to remind us instead of Ortho Tri Cyclen Low’s giant pink bubble case. Men can vow to remind their female partners when it’s that hour to get the Purple Yazmin out. Or do as I have, vowing to reuse the same blue Yaz slip for all future pill packs; don’t give me another one! Women can’t responsibly stop taking the pill, but producers must responsibly stop overpackaging their birth control pills.

Plastic Packaging: Potato plastics and bioplastic validity

I’m addressing a shortly discussed matter of interest in this post

Upon traveling through the Ring of Kerry in Southern Ireland a few weekends ago, I chatted with our tour guide from Galway. We passed a couple fields of windmills that generate energy for the towns, but she explained to me that most Irish people find these to be eyesores and not worth the small amount of energy they generate, in comparison to the energy Ireland needs and is trying to conserve.

I brought up how green and energy efficient Ireland seems to be, with its buildings only using heat/air at certain hours, many businesses keeping their indoor lights shut off, and stores charging people to use plastic bags. She explained to me a new solution in Ireland, potato plastic, that has been gaining interest for its green technology. Though green, this plastic is not at all energy efficient. Read on, homies.

Potato Plastic: Green, but not energy-efficient

Example of "spudware":

A new line of plastic eating utensils from the Dutch firm De Ster uses potato starch as the basic polymer. This application of potato starch to replace plastic is the result of a collaboration between the German firm BIOTEC (for raw materials) and Dutch manufacturer of disposables plastic worldwide, De Ster.

This is the first time potato plastic has been used in a product which replaces conventional plastic. De Ster has replaced standard plastic ware with an ergonomical, high-tech, high-design product.

This product was that made in reaction to demands for more recyclable materials rather than disposable. And hey, potatoes are easy to farm and produce: the plan would initially seem to be brilliant.

Potato starch is a biopolymer with the same properties as conventional plastics. In the manufacturing process the material can be treated like plastics, for instance subjected to normal injection moulding techniques. With these disposables a biodegradable product made from an agricultural raw material is completely reusable as compost. A new generation of biopolymers which can be recycled into cattle-fodder is currently being developed. 

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/810/

Support for bioplastics also takes into account the natural resources we use to produce plastics:

These new bioplastics are thus, made from plant starch and not crude oil and petroleum products. These bioplastics in turn, can be used to produce carpeting, upholstery fabric and recyclable plastic bottles, according to a report by the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

The United Kingdom and Japan have already turned to potato-based plastics technology to manufacture items like ’spudware’ or plastic silverware from potatoes.

So if they don’t use up energy more energy, products are considered green.

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/making-bio-plastics-from-potatoes/

A radically right-wing comment from Smithsonian.com on the bioplastics. Unfortunately, this dude has a point:

Corn Plastic [or potato plastic] is a neat experiment, but definitely not a good idea in tough times. The reality of world wide food shortages should make us all realize this is not the time to take farm land out of production to make energy inefficient substrates at the expense of feeding people.

Also, look at the commentary on the fact it actually takes more energy to produce. By the time the land is farmed, the raw materials transported, and processed, we are now being told that nothing has been gained energy wise.

In fact, we’re spending more money on energy to do so.

The man then goes on to say that PVC (plastics) when measured against bioplastics are not only more energy efficient, but also more socially responsible, cleaner, safer, and greener. The man seems to degenerate his validity with this, but at least he has the topic in his head. He brings up the arguments I’ve commonly heard.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/plastic.html

Final comment

Bioplastics entail the same issues as biofuel: they're not cost-effective or energy-efficient. It's a cool industry to learn about, but we're not green by turning to bioplastics to solve environmental issues. Negative 4 points for potato plastics.