It’s Time To Trade In Those Plastic Bottles For Boxed Water
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Boxed Water Is Better
We could preach at the top of our lungs day after day that it really isn’t that hard ditch convenience water for a sturdy (and cute) reusable water bottle, but it’s clearly a waste of our breath at this point. American purchasing patterns prove that the water category of the packaged beverage industry is here to stay. As a country, we purchase 35 billion plastic water bottles annually. So we might as well just focus on the options that suck a lot less for us and the planet, right?
Boxed water is far from new, but the water packaging trend is making major waves. Boxed Water Is Better, one of the largest and most well-known brands of boxed water on the market, got its start in 2009. And almost a decade later, it’s sitting on shelves at supermarkets and even city bodegas, creating a direct comparison to plastic water bottles for consumers and encouraging them to question their typical purchasing patterns. Other boxed water companies, including Rethink Water and Just Water, are becoming hot options as well.
At its core, there isn’t anything particularly special about the water inside these boxes. Each brand uses its own purification processes to create a healthy and pleasant-tasting water drinking experience for their customers, but we can’t necessarily say that the quality of the water is that much better than every single bottled water lined up next to it. It’s just a quality water option that assuages any remaining fears of what lurks in our tap water.
And at the end of the day, these water cartons aren’t poisoning us, either. Whereas, a recent study from the State University of New York found microplastics in 93 percent of bottled water samples spanning 11 different brands. Gross. Honestly, what is still so appealing about bottled water anyway?
Where it makes its substantial impact, though, is in the packaging. While it takes your average plastic bottle 450 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill, the bulk of materials used by boxed water brands is immediately recyclable. And the remainder of the cartons naturally break down a hell of a lot faster than any plastic ever could.
Also, have you ever seen how plastic bottles stack inside a cardboard shipping box? There is so much unused space. It’s honestly insane. That’s why Boxed Water Is Better ships all of its cartons pre-constructed and flat, maximizing 100 percent of the available shipping space. In fact, the company can transport 26 times the number of water boxes in just one truck to its filling station than your average plastic bottle company can fit into one delivery. So its water is even cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions created by the transportation process.
Reaching beyond efficiency, Boxed Water Is Better also makes a clear point to return to Mother Nature what it has borrowed. Through its #betterplanet partnership with the National Forest Foundation’s 1% For The Planet campaign, the company is going to plant a total of one million new trees across the world within the next five years, keeping that wonderful renewable resource of ours truly abundant. And the carton materials used by Just Water are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, a global, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of responsible forest management worldwide. They guarantee that any wood-based materials used in their product come from healthy forests.
If we have our pick, we’re still grabbing our reusable canteens and carrying them with us everywhere. But boxed water is definitely next in line and, by far and wide, so much better than crappy plastic ever will be.
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