Bottle it: The Culture of Bottled Water in Paris

For a culture so aware of the serious environmental threats we face, it is interesting to see how many plastic water bottles the French use. For instance, we were at the International Energy Agency in Paris discussing environmental sustainability, and what were we offered? Plastic bottles. Even worse, 15 out of the 16 people drank them. Yes, that one person was me. So why do people need to drink bottled water when there is perfectly clean tap water? Well, let’s start from the beginning.

After I watched the documentary Tapped, I learned that it was the French company, Perrier, that popularized bottled-water in the 1970s. It was for the elite. With the “most natural” of all waters, why would it not be (disclosure: in reality 40% of bottled water is really filtered tap water)? It was exported to America where it simply became the convenient norm. Did you know that Americans use enough water bottles to circle the earth 250 times in just one year! Crazy! Anyway, back to France.

It has become such a standard that no one thinks otherwise. While many Parisians will pass a plastic bag tax in a second, they will not think twice about gulping down a plastic water bottle and then throwing it in the trash. Trash, not recycling. Granted there are some recycling bins, but for all the bottled drinks that Parisians use, you would think there would be more.

I have been playing a little game to see how long it takes me to find a recycling bin after drinking a nice Orangina. So far my average time is 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes of active looking. Remember that convenience is the key to effective recycling, so if there are no recycling bins in sight, most people will not hold onto a bottle 20 minutes, much less 1 minute, before they toss it. 

Some of the recycling bins I saw-
The idea of recycling on one side,
trash on the other is an idea
we need to adopt in the US! 

That said, some of the French bottled water companies do something very interesting. According to Prof. Christian De Perthuis, a leading environmental researcher, they pay the plastic bottle tax. This is basically a few cents per bottle that goes to fund the recycling pickup. This has been encouraged and tried in a few parts of the States (six states have adopted this method of funding for bottled water). The company is able to put the label “100% recyclable” to show its generosity. (NOTE: Recyclable does not mean the bottle is made from recycled material!) Unfortunately, in the U.S. many of the bottled water industries such as Pepsi and Nestle have too much power for this ever to happen.

So, the French are ahead of the U.S. on their way of funding the recycling of water bottles, but as for the use of them, that is another story. Like I said before, it is just ingrained in the culture. And once something is ingrained in a culture, especially the Parisian culture, it is hard to change. 

Our group (The School of Ethics and Global Leadership)
with Prof. Christian de Perthuis