BlueTriton, the company that owns Arrowhead brand, has been taking water from San Bernardino springs for more than 100 years

BlueTriton, the company that owns Arrowhead brand, has been taking water from San Bernardino springs for more than 100 years

California has ordered the company that owns Arrowhead bottled water to stop using some of the natural springs it has utilized for more than a century, following a years-long campaign by environmentalists to stop the operation.

Regulators on Tuesday voted to significantly reduce how much water BlueTriton – the owner of the Arrowhead brand – can take from public lands in the San Bernardino mountains. The ruling is a victory for community groups who have said for years that the bottled water firm has drained an important creek that serves as a habitat for wildlife and helps protect the area from wildfires.

Arrowhead bottled water traces its roots to a hotel at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains that first opened in 1885 and began selling bottled spring water from its basement in 1906. But environmental and community groups say the company has never had permission to take water from the springs in the San Bernardino national forest.

The state water resources control board agreed that BlueTriton does not have permission to use the water and ordered the company to stop. The order does not ban the company from taking any water from the mountain, but it significantly reduces how much it can take.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
    4·
    10 months ago

    I am sure emergency workers would rather not have to haul around water in glass containers after a disaster. If you have another material that is cheap, can be injected molded, bends instead of breaking, only impacts humans under mass exposure, and lightweight plesse let people know.

    • eek2121@lemmy.world
      7·
      10 months ago

      Aluminum is lighter than glass. Cardboard can be treated so that it holds fluid as well (and can still be made recyclable)

      Regardless, plastic requires fossil fuels to make. It needs to go.

      I have aluminum cups that can be (hand) washed/reused/recycled. Most plastic cannot be recycled

      The tech is there, companies just need to be incentivized to use it.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        Alright so go and do it. I have done some plastic extruder machine control systems. Let me know when you need my help. It is pretty crazy to me that there is this really simple solution that no one on earth is trying and there is a shitton of money to be made but it is possible.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          4·
          10 months ago

          Are you missing the point that plastic is used because it is cheaper, not because it is better for humanity and nature?

          It’s like saying “so go ahead and fix the climate, if fixing the climate is so good for us”. What exactly do you think the problem is?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        I don’t know how the chemistry works, but we had aluminum cups and they were somehow taking the calcium in the water and concentrating it into little deposits on the bottom of the cup which were hard to get off. I switched back to glass.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      10 months ago

      Thermoses are commonly used, and they even have a vacuum inside!

      If you don’t care about keeping the internal temperature, there’s a lot of options for good reusable water containers. Why should we even use disposable containers if we can avoid it?