I Don't Understand Ethos Water
Have you heard of Ethos Water?I first learned about it while waiting for my coffee in a downtown Chicago Starbucks this morning.
It's a bottled water company that aims to "help children around the world get clean water and to raise awareness of the world water crisis." Apparently, for every bottle of the water bought, $.05 will be donated to the cause.
Sounds kind of nice, right? Helping people and all. That's good, right?
But the more I think about this product, the more I think it's the most ridiculous thing ever created.
I mean, this water is being sold in Chicago, a city on the banks of Lake Michigan, one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world and home to 1,180 cubic miles of good-quality drinking water (can you even imagine how much water that is?). But, even though Chicagoans have huge amounts good tap water available nearly free of charge, we are for some reason spending more than $1.50 per bottle for Ethos Water .
Yep. There are 1 billion people in the world without access to clean drinking water, and instead of celebrating the fact that we are lucky enough to have potable tap water, we are buying ultra-expensive "purified" water and, in turn, implying that our tap water isn't good enough.
It's just so ridiculous.
Ethos Water, which will indeed help people without clean drinking water, is like a hypothetical slap in the face to the same people it's trying to help.
It gives me the creeps (even without considering how plastic waste plays into this).
My suggestion: if you're ever tempted to buy a bottle of Ethos water, grab a glass of tap water instead and then donate a full $1.50 towards clean drinking water. Check out the Universal Giving website to find a charity you like.
Comments
I've seen it before, and the name makes me think of pathos. A feeling of pity, compassion or grief.
I think they were trying to combine ethics and pathos in the name, but it just reminds me of the feeling of grief for Mama Earth. Shannon
I looked up the definition of the word ethos, which you can find below. Based on the definition, I think we could almost say that our ethos these days is one of consumerism, with a unique characteristic of that consumerism being the desire to buy things like bottled water that we truly don't need.
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Ethos
1. The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
2. The character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.
3. The moral element in dramatic literature that determines a character's action rather than his or her thought or emotion.
I emailed their Corporate division about this. I got a response back saying that the water bottles had a number "1" on the bottom and "they were the easiest to recycle." Somehow that is Starbucks rationalization.
this girl can write.I'm bookmarking you .I like your cause and writing style,thanks
JS
PS if you want to see an actually example of someone who can't write
check out
http://potpolitics.blogspot.com
energy for the cause.Gave me some things to think about.Thanks
JSinKEYWEST@aol.com
http://potpolitics.blogspot.com
I know i go against the grain here when I say that tap water isn't as good as you might think.
Not enough space here to justify that but you can read what i have to say at watershed1.com
I will say this though:
If you have ever had Reiki. If you believe in radios but don't know how they really truly work. If you have ever experienced intuition before. If you believe water is far, far more than a clear liquid, then possibly you'll be open to the concept of 'energy'/ether healing water and then you.
If a radio antenna can attract a certain frequency we can't see, that carries infomation in it then surely we should be open to a device that attracts the good stuff, ether (chi, Prana) to the water source. Then, by virtue of the 'intelligence' of water, the waters current sick status is transformed to the resonance of the ether.
Weird? Maybe to many. Untrue? Not to this young duck.
I have one. A Vortex Energizer that is a stand alone device that is placed, preferably, at the mains. All water passing it will take on the resonance/energy of the attracted ether. Result. Water that tastes brilliant. Every test i do with friends comes back the same.
Maybe the world isn't ready for the implimentation of this conept on a large scale but at least we can start at home. Maybe they'll start asking questions.
Water borne diseases are the leading cause of human sickness and death
The average person in the developing world uses 2.64 gallons of water a day, while the average person in the US uses 100-175
Help end the global water crisis!
Visit blueplanetrun.org
At the same time, to imply that our tap water is clean drinking water doesn't make much sense either. The amount of hazardous chemicals in our tap water is substantial enough to cause damage to our health over a long-term period of consumption.
It's time for us to think of sustainability as that balancing ecological as well as personal health/wealth components.
And in any case, to judge Ethos water for they are doing wrong is to miss the most fundamental point of their company culture of giving back. If every company in the U.S. gave back $.05 for a $1.80 product sold, don't you think the world would be a much better place?
~Bill Baren
Rajneesh Potey , India
rajneesh_0888@yahoo.com
I have been an enthisiastic collector of domestic plastic objects for about 20 years - sorry!
But that is not to say that I don't appreciate the negative side of the material.
I am aghast at the needless wrapping of products and of bottled water too.
But one thing gets me about Ethos is that they offer to donate a miserly 5c when they make a huge profit from the water they sell. I occasionally buy bottled water to take to the martial art lessons I participate in but am on the look-out for a permanent bottle. Yes, I sometimes refill the plastic bottle, but I'm told that this is not ideal as the plastic may leach out chemicals.
Personally, I'd rather someone paid $1 for a bottle of Dasani or Aquafina, and give $0.80 to kids in Africa then buy $1.80 Ethos water. It would be a better, more effective use of money. People would get their filtered, bottled water that they are after so much, and people in Africa or whatever would get what, 16x the benefit?
I've heard Ethos/starbucks has a metal water bottle that some of the profit is supposed to help the same charity as the plastic bottled water. I do plan to buy a metal bottle at some point (I've only seen my brothers. He got his a while ago, and I want to see the bottles in person at my local starbucks first), but more because I want a bottle like that and I think it would fit my needs, not because Ethos is giving a marginal portion of their profit to a charity.
A point before I go on - ethos is like pathos, but it is the appeal to authority. Someone like George Washington or Mother Theresa would have a large amount of ethos; they are individuals whose opinions would be trusted by a vast majority.
As for this conversation, and the large amount of people involved, it seems like you all have a passionate one.... to put my challenge to you simply, instead of complaining and analyzing what Ethos is doing wrong, do something yourselves about it! Make a difference like you don't think Ethos is!
http://margaretswanderings.blogspot.com/2009/04/political-consumption-in-bottle.html
:)
This is ridiculous. STARBUCKS should be ashamed of itself, using people pain, in order to make money!
I wonder why they dont donate the $0.05 from their $4 Macchiato!
I have been trying in vain to find info online to that effect. The world loves Matt Damon and if there's anything critical of him online, then it's buried in the mountains of adulation. I too love his flicks. So what?
Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians) has written a few good books about water that I recommend. I read the first of those, Blue Gold. I bought the second, but lost it and a pile of other books I had when I moved. Actually, It looks like they were stolen. This wage slave can't afford to just go out and replace them.
Another blogger pointed out that for Starbucks to reach it's own target for contributions given directly to assist those in need of clean drinking water, they would have to sell an enormous number of bottles, which aren't recyclable. The 5 cents from a bottle that is upwards of $4 is... pathetic. But don't quote me on those facts. I would have to do more research before I would state authoritatively the dollars and stats here.
Which doesn't mean I don't know something about how pernicious the largely unregulated bottled water industry is. Those water companies have chutzpah. They take the peoples' water, often destroying irreplaceable aquifers in the process and sell it back to them, making enormous profits because governments, which protect corporations rather than all of us, don't restrict them or properly tax them. (Actually, Those should be royalties, I believe, and governments here would function as good or bad realtors for the people and ensure that the peoples' resources benefitted the people. As bad realtors, they would fail to mediate productively and in good faith between the the people and the buyers of our resource.)
And so on...
Here's a company (Starbucks) that is committed to building community and awareness as part of their mission statement. They volunteer their people to many world crisis like Katrina and most recently the Japanese earthquake, where they donated a million dollars to the cleanup effort.
Many places do not have the luxury of enormous freshwater lakes. The water in many areas has been treated so much to kill bacteria that the taste of it is unbearable. Paying for a bottle of water when needed is a convenience that has high demand. In other words, their is a market for it. I wonder, how much money these other water bottling companies are contributing to worldly causes....?
Here's a company (Starbucks) that is committed to building community and awareness as part of their mission statement. They volunteer their people to many world crisis like Katrina and most recently the Japanese earthquake, where they donated a million dollars to the cleanup effort.
Many places do not have the luxury of enormous freshwater lakes. The water in many areas has been treated so much to kill bacteria that the taste of it is unbearable. Paying for a bottle of water when needed is a convenience that has high demand. In other words, their is a market for it. I wonder, how much money these other water bottling companies are contributing to worldly causes....?
Robert Mollenauer
Bermuda Dunes, CA
IT WOULD BE WISE TO KNOW IF
THE BOTTLING SITES ARE CLOSE TO
OR EFFECTED BY FRACKING.
What a concept! Overcharge for a product and be praised for giving a nickel to a charity.
Most corporations donate heavily to all sorts of charities, as do many Americans - without the need to tell everyone how awesome they are, or mark up the prices on bottled water to only donate a fraction of that mark-up to a charity.
In addition to charitable giving, every US taxpayer contributes towards the billions in foreign aid.