WATER

Nestlé’s Move to Bottle

Community Water
Fact Sheet • July 2009

N estlé has taken water from numerous U.S. communities for cheap or nothing,
bottled and sold it — for billions of dollars in profit — and then dumped the
environmental and other costs onto society.

Nestlé: The Corporate Giant Producing Nestlé’s Bottled Water Is

Nestlé, based in Vevey, Switzerland, is the world’s larg-
est food and beverage company.1 One of its subsidiar-
ies, Greenwich, Connecticut-based Nestlé Waters North
America, is the top U.S. bottled water company. Its
Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Deer Park, Nestlé Pure Life,
Ozarka, Ice Mountain and Zephyrhills brands of bottled
water together registered sales of $997 million in 2007,
which gave Nestlé Waters North America 30 percent ma-
ket share, according to the Beverage World’s 2008 report
on the industry.2 This did not include sales from the com-
pany’s other brands, such as Perrier and Calistoga.
Nestlé Tries to Buy Water for Less
Than What Local Residents Pay.
Nestlé’s search for water has stirred up controversy in
California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Wisconsin and other states.
In McCloud, California, Nestlé sought groundwater for
less than local residents pay.3 It tried to engineer a deal
in which it would have paid about 1 cent to mine and
then bottle every 123 gallons of the area’s groundwater —
$0.000081 per gallon. By comparison, the average state
rate for municipal use of groundwater is 1 cent per 40 gal-
lons.4 Meanwhile, Nestlé can sell this water in a 16-ounce
bottle for around $1.29, or $10.32 per gallon.5
Energy-Intensive
Nestlé’s North American bottled water brands contribute
to the pollution, energy and climate change trouble as-
sociated with bottled water production and distribution
in general. However, the company tries to “greenwash” its
role in this. For example, it has touted its lighter-weight
single-serve bottled water products as an example of a
way to go green.9 The fact is, plastic bottles still use petro-
leum resources and many empty Nestlé bottles still end
up as trash along roadways or in landfills.
Consider the following information arrived at from Food
& Water Watch calculations: U.S. consumers disposed
of some 30.08 billion bottles in 2006. That year, Nestlé
controlled 30.4 percent of the U.S. bottled water market,
measured in volume of water sold. If market share in vol-
ume roughly equates to the market share in the number
of single-serve PET plastic bottles sold, that means 9.14
billion of those bottles could have been a Nestlé brand.
Given that 86 percent of plastic bottles end up in landfills

Nestlé Harms Local Ecosystems

When Nestlé or any other water bottler removes large
amounts of groundwater from a region or community,
such as Mecosta County, Michigan, it can alter the level
and flow of springs, lakes, rivers and drinking water
wells. That, in turn, can harm the environments and
economies that depend on the water.6,7,8
rather than being recycled, 7.86 billion of the empty PET
plastic water bottles in the trash could have come from
one of Nestlé’s nine domestic bottled water brands. That
pencils out to more than 491,250,000 pounds of Nestlé
plastic in the trash, rather than being recycled, or, better
yet, never produced in the first place. 10
Communities Challenge Nestlé
Residents in communities across the country are chal-
lenging Nestlé’s attempts to bottle and sell their ground-
water.
Maine serves as a good example. Kennebunk residents
challenged Nestlé Waters North America subsidiary
Poland Spring. In November 2008 they passed a morato-
rium on large-scale water extraction and testing on state
land within the town.11 Although the moratorium was to
last only 180 days, the hope is that enough communi-
ties will pass moratoria and ordinances that activists can
educate residents of other places where Nestlé might be
scouting for water.12
Earlier, in September 2008, voters in Shapleigh, Maine,
approved a six-month moratorium on testing or large-
scale extraction of water in the town.13
The anti-water bottling sentiment proved just as strong, but
with longer-lasting results than a moratorium, in Enum-
claw, Washington. Residents and the city council shot down
Nestlé’s hopes to take water from the town’s supply.14
To learn more about the issues related to Nestlé’s opera-
tions and to bottled water in general, please see our full
report, All Bottled Up: Nestlé’s Pursuit of Community
Water on our Web site.
What You Can Do
• Choose tap water over bottled water whenever possible.
• Encourage your friends, family, university campus, local
government and community groups to break the bottled
water habit at home, the office and public events. Sign
the Take Back the Tap pledge on our Web site.
• Join Food & Water Watch’s campaign to urge local
restaurants to stop serving bottled water.
• Encourage your local government and businesses to
repair and install water fountains or tap water filling
stations.
• Support state legislation to prevent excessive removal
of groundwater.
• Host a screening of one of the films available from Food
& Water Watch’s Water Film Library about citizens
challenging Nestlé and other water bottlers.
• Get more involved in taking back the tap by contacting
Food & Water Watch at 202-683-2500, cleanwater@
fwwatch.org
Endnotes
1 “Nestle SA, the world’s largest food and beverage company, has an
agreement to buy weight management firm Jenny Craig.” Food Processing,
August 1, 2006.
2 “State of the Industry ’08: Bottled Water Report.” Beverage World. April
2008 at S14.
3 Stranko, Brian. “Nestlé Wants to Own Your Water: Time for Californians to
Act.” California Progress Report, Nov. 29, 2007.
4 Stranko, Brian. “Nestlé Wants to Own Your Water: Time for Californians to
Act.” California Progress Report, Nov. 29, 2007.
5 Lohan, Tara. “Rural communities exploited by Nestlé for your bottled
water.” AlterNet. May 30, 2007.
6 Boldt-Van Rooy, Tara. “’Bottling Up’ Our Natural Resources: The Fight
Over Bottled Water Extraction in the United States.” Journal of Land Use,
Vol. 18:2, Spring 2003, Pgs. 278-281
7 Hyndman, Ph.D., David. Associate Professor, Michigan State University.
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Dec.
12, 2007.
8 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Facility in
McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007.
9 Bialik, Carl. “Water Bottles Slim Down.” Wall Street Journal Blog.
December 14, 2007.
10 Food & Water Watch calculation: According to Beverage Marketing
Corporation, in 2006, U.S. consumption of PET bottled water (likely in
single serve bottles) was 4.7 billion gallons (Source: State of the Industry
2007, Beverage Marketing Corporation, April 2007). One gallon = 128
ounces. Convert 4.7 billion gallons to ounces (4.7 billion gallons X 128
ounces in a gallon = 601,600,000,000 ounces.) Most PET plastic bottles
hold either 16 or 20 ounces. Assume 20 ounces to be conservative with
this calculation. Need to convert those 601.6 billion ounces to bottles.
(601,6000,000,000/20 ounces each bottle = 30,080,000,000 bottles.
Nestlé controlled 30.4 percent of U.S. bottled water market in 2006. So,
one must find out how many of those 30.08 billion bottles could be a
Nestlé brand. So, calculate how many of those 30.08 billion bottles might
have been a Nestlé brand, assuming that market share in volume roughly
equates to the market share in the number of bottles sold. Calculation is
30.4 percent (.304) X 30,080,000,000 = 9.144 billion of those bottles
might have been a Nestlé brand. According to statistics, 86 percent of
plastic bottles are thrown away rather than recycled. So, .86 X 9.144 billion
empty bottles = 7.86 billion empty plastic bottles (potentially a Nestlé
brand) ending up in a landfill. Assume that each empty bottle weighs one
ounce, so that is 7.86 billion ounces of plastic in the landfills. One pound =
16 ounces. 7.86 billion ounces/16 ounces in a pound = 491,250,000 pounds
of plastic bottle trash that might have been attributable to Nestlé’s bottled
water brands.
11 El-Shafei, Jamilla. Save Our Water, personal interview, October 28, 2008.
12 Ibid.
13 Murphy, Edward D. “Shapleigh voters turn down Poland Spring - A six-
month moratorium on water extraction and testing is a stumbling block for
the bottler.” Portland Press Herald, September 21, 2008
14 Solomon, Cara. “Nestlé water plant? Not in our town, Enumclaw says.” The
Seattle Times. July 24, 2008.
For more information:
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email: info@fwwatch.org
phone: (202) 683-2500 (DC) • (415) 293-9900 (CA)
Copyright © July 2009 Food & Water Watch