DEC 01

This certainly sounds interesting, but I certainly wont be buying any, as buying bottled water is completely pointless, and bad for the environment, regardless of what material is used for the bottle.

As it's paper, it may be possible to print directly on to the bottle, but many people may people may find it being non-transparent a problem.

"I certainly wont be buying any" that is just stupid and very limited thinking. It seems that you have never leave your hose for more than 500m. If you are traveling around, especially in countries where you do not want to drink water from their water system, you are forced to buy a bottled water. Dear ecogeeks do not be so radical in your eco actions.
I salute this kind of paper bottles and I hope they will be soon in our stores.

Questions:
1. Weight / volume relative to commonplace plastic bottles?
Stack ability?
3. Lined? inside or outside or both?
4. Max size for this design? Assume it holds water (weight-strength (Kp/cm2)/volume (i.e. crush volume))
5. Disposal facts:
a. where?
b. how?
c. recycle scheme?
d. ecocost of throwaway? (both effect and $/unit & $/person distributed disposal cost{local, state, National, world}) hidden costs
e. comparison "d" calculation for ~500ml plastic drink bottle throwaway
Note: any estimate for d&e will be wrong but if done rigorously and consistently will be useful for comparisons. Multiply by 6,000,000,000 and get a nasty surprise
6.impregnated with cellulolytic fungi (e.g.Trichderma viridi etc.) to degrade throwaways?
7.Alternate natural non-paper fibers (Kanef, straw, switch grass, bark and other wood wastes not used in board, etc.) to lower cost?
Commercialization would only require some of these questions to be answered. Sustainability would require all and more questions to be answered if we wish to survive on this failing planet. Are recent MBA's being taught this kind of reasoning generally? I think, F--K No! You write the postscript.
GES
SALVO PLANETAE SUPRIMA LEX ESTO
(the SAFETY OF THE PLANET IS THE HIGHEST LAW)

MBAs are only taught how to identify the urges of the citizenry, and fulfill them in a cheap fashion. Looked at this way, all businesses are utter tools to our whims. Thus, moral obligations must be undertaken by consumers in order to turn the rest of the wheels.

Make tactical choices, my friends. Every dollar is a vote for your cause.

What is wrong with GLASS? Or, issuing every consumer with a free metal liquid container that could be refilled at a refilling station?

So suddenly since plastic is bad, it is OK to cut down trees?

I agree that bottled water isn't usually necessary, but you aren't going to get rid of it, so I appreciate the steps to make this wasteful habit less... wasteful. I especially appreciate the point above about buying bottled water where you know the tap isn't safe.

gsmolk asks some good questions. One wonders about the transport cost in fuel of heavier containers. Might be negligible. I don't know.

Glad people are thinking about it though.

Beingn a truck driver by trade, I can answer the question about transport costs

Paper and cardboard flatten out, so you can haul about 4 times the number of individual containers as opposed to plastic. However plastic is very light in weight since what is being shipped is mostly air.

With the differences in amount of pieces shipped I would say that shipping costs would actually be cheaper per individual item since we would be burning less fuel.

But in beverage factories, plastic bottles are "blown" into full shape before they are being filled, so only small plastic tubes are transported to the factories. In this case, I don't think a truck can ship more flattened bottles and the plastic tubes in a single journey.

It's true that it takes a lot of thoughts in making a sustainable decision... a robust cost-benefit analysis incoporating the environmental costs is very much needed indeed.

Why not just recycle plastic? 1/3 of all of the oil in this country that is imported is used to make plastic bottles and plastic bags. We can reduce our oil consumption by a 1/3 just be recycling plastic. There is a wal-mart in every community today. Every Wal-mart recycles plastic shopping bags free of charge. Why invent something when the solution is already there.

Do you know how much water is polluted to make paper? Well its a lot, stick with the plastic.

Do you know how much fossil fuel is used to make plastic? Buy a reuseable, recyclable, and (sometimes) recycled aluminum bottle or two, keep them with you, refill it and use it for years. You can get filters if you are travelling where you worry about toxins, and boil water where you worry about pathogens - bottled water is NOT held to the same standards of testing as a municipal supply in the US.

Do you know how much fossil fuel is used to make plastic? Get yourself a reuseable, recyclable, (sometimes) recycled aluminum bottle - or better yet, a thermos that you can use for your (organic, free trade) hot beverage as well... if you are someplace you worry about toxins, get filters, if you worry about pathogens, boil... if you worry about nitrates, you live in the MidWest.. good luck. Bottled water is NOT held to the same testing standards as typical municipal supplies, although some is just tap water, they also are not required to release any test reports. Happy sipping....

Just put a bottle deposit on every plastic container like Maine does. That way, people will be more likely to to recycle the container and get their money back. Some will pick up plastic containers off the ground to get the money

Why can't we just re-use the plastic bottles?
Thats what I do, instead of throwing them away,
wash them, let them dry and store them. When I need to use a bottle, I just do a quick rinse and fill it up with filtered water, and put it in the fridge.

it's soooo refreshing to see such conversation on here about this article! very informed points of view.

What everyone failed to mention here is why not just use glass bottles?

Actually I just noticed someone did mention glass and I apologize. Worked for thousands of years before plastic/aluminum ever came around.

I was reusing plastic water bottles, but after 2 uses, I would notice a chemical taste in the water... Have you noticed this, Pellyloonajagysa?

I started to use Mason jars as water bottles, but the lids have a lining that also changes the taste of the water.

Any suggestions?

After reading all the comments, my conclusion is that we're doomed! Plastics, paper, aluminum, glass, whatever! Here's an idea, all you irresponsible breeders out there, stop having children! The planet cannot support all your offspring and surprise - neither can you! I see "you" whining on tv about not being able to afford daycare and health care for them - well, did you think having children would be free? If people who are barely earning above minimum wage are foolish enough to have a couple kids on that kind of income, it's not up to the taxpayer to foot the bill! But that's another subject! Sorry, off on a tangent thought there!

Shouldn't that be Salus planetae suprema lex est?

glass breaks

Let the market decide. keep the government out. they always mess up. Government is the problem not the solution.

wow, very interesting points!

yippee!!! now i can just toss the paper bottle out the window as i'm driving and eliminate car seat waste......police? don't be scared...they're all down at dunkin donuts. and hey, remember...paper disintegrates. or put a self striking match in it, THEN toss it and it will burn up. and the match industry will hire instead of laying off.
this makes sense don't you think!!??

Glass uses an enormous amount of energy in the recycling/fabrication process. Glass is not the answer. Glass also, doesn't really naturally break down like paper would.

While saving your plastic bottles for later use is a good idea, the type of PET plastic used in water bottles photodegrades and becomes brittle fairly quickly. Furthermore, plastic 'recycling' is a joke.

Glass breaks? How many times do you drop a drink? If your not smart enough to hold a bottle then you don't need to be here. Even a baby can hold a bottle. To the guy that mentioned not having children I applaud you!! There are way to many metro sexual sissys in this country anyway. Bottled water is simply tap water anyway. If you want something truly safe drink beer and wine.

Paper packaging has been used for years. Milk carton, OJ. Find something new to gripe about.

so, because a man actually wants to have children, that makes him a metrosexual sissy?

Whilst on the subject abt paper milk containers, what gives with the sarcastic know it alls? Back to the recyclables!

Botled water for emergencies only is usefull, prefered in tinted glass bottles (old 1 gallons/4 liters cider bottles)keep at room temperature for 6 month then rotate. Use of 5% potassium iodine (5 drops/liter for 15 mins for regular old/spoiled water or more if unknown clear water) suggested. Will have iodine taste.
Plastic or paper bottle will disolve in water. Metals to avoid especialy aluminium.
Hemp is best to create paper, cloths, rope... 80% of Uss Constitution sailboat made of hemp. Grows faster and takes les resources from ground. Cheaper to produce and no pesticides needed (natural defences).
Create localy, buy localy, decide localy. Globalisation is a fraud and is costly.
Sun creates climate changes. Banks are the real problem. Back to money based on commodities.
911 and all the rest is a BANK JOB.

I want to kill the planet! I eat plastic food so that I can shit more plastic!

There are some very interesting points of view on here. I like to read everyone's point of view and many are very valid.

But the biggest hurdle to any serious effort to so-called "save the planet" (whatever saving a planet is) is politics, lawyers and commercial activity.

this is similar to the war of drugs. The war on carbon and environmental destruction is the same as the war on drugs. How the heck are you gonna reduce drugs without reducing addicts and dealers? How are you going to "save the planet" when you have 6 billion addicts and millions of dealers. You can make the darned bottles out of air and magnetic energy for all I care and the problem is you have 6 billion and growing addicts. You are going to run out of air eventually anyway.

So yeah, plastic uses oil. Paper uses massive amounts of water and some trees or wood waste products. and so on. You might produce products that use less and less energy and materials but you are never going to win this battle because whatever your energy and materials offset savings are are being striped away at a faster rate by growing consumerism.

And I don't see any government out there (except maybe North Korea (anyone from there with a comment or insight?) trying to reduce consumerism. The politics and the lawyers and the corporations will crush any opposition to consumerism. Every aspect of our lives is driven by it. Every aspect of our economy is controlled and dictated by it. Everything is built upon it.

I suppose we could all go live in tee pees or wigwams and grow our own food and stare at the stars at night. But even with 6 billion people that is going to be a serious impact. That's a lot of tee pees and stuff.

Anyway, and as far as killing the planet I don't know anyway to do that. The planet is dead already. You can alter the environment to become hostile to life. So you can kill life. But There is no killing or saving the planet. There is killing or saving life. And at this point it's pretty much like rats in a box. The rats will take care of their own populations if you let them. But if you keep adding more and more food to the box you will end up with more and more rats. So, in effect a lot of these environment saving or earth friendly technologies are inadvertently leading to more and more destruction. What is the difference between 1 million polluting cars or 1 billion low emissions cars or 100 billion very low emissions cars or a trillion zero emissions cars (that use another form of polluting energy)?

And what really cracks me up are all these companies jumping on the green bandwagon because it is so darned popular now. Aren't these the same companies that make all your food out of chemicals or using industrial farming techniques? So, now we want iPods that biodegrade after playing 100,000 songs. Or whatever. We want lower pollution production while making Macs or PCs so we can then make and sell 100 or 1000 or 1000000 times as many of them. Yippy.

So, the environmentalist are fighting the war on drugs. A war which by design is doomed to failure and is futile. There are two ways of dealing with environmentalism and both are directly related to population.

If you conceed to the fact that there are way too many people then you might at least be dealing with some facts and get on the road to solving this problem. Or you can completely ignore the problem altogether and the problem will solve itself by default. Either way you are looking at population reduction...either by design or by consequence. But a bunch of paper bottles and biodegradable iPods aren't going to do jack diddly except delay the problem. So how long do you want to delay the problem. Our technology can probably delay this problem for a long long time I would suspect. We can even go right into a harsh form of consumer communism and really slow down the environmental destruction. Heck, isn't that the direction the hardcore greens are wanting to head. No cars, no this, no that. Ok fine, then eventually there will be no bicycles because there are too many of those being made and too many people are trampling grasslands with bike tires or whatever.

How long do we want to go round and round in circles on this issue?

The post directly above this one by "Dude" is about as point-on as they get. Overpopulation (especially overpopulating with greedy corporate ***ks that drive a hummer to work to launder mroe drug money and write loans they know will default (oh, wait, that went out of style a few months back, so let's stick with money laundering for now), so they can buy bigger houses and ***k and make more kids that consume more crap they don't need, and then the kids can have more kids while still kids themselves, and then our tax dollars can pay for their formula and shTTY non-biodegradable diapers and state funded health insurance that provides better coverage then I get for almost $1000 a month. But whine on folks, whine on. The budget, the environment, social security. One day we will wake up and have standing room only. There won't be any cars, because there will be nothing but droves of people, long-unemployed, standing in the roads. Think that 1930's Great Depression footage they show, but add in an extra pinch of violence, greed, corruption, and, oh yeah, a billion-ish more people -- on a global scale. Have fun.

It is rather difficult to grasp the fact that water will and always will be a necessary element. With the wisdom of ages, we will discover another means by which to transport this valueable alloid around.

Whatever the timeframe for all this, there is a new legal issue in sight that I feel needs to be addressed now. So, would it be illegal to drink out of NON-ECO-FRIENDLY (plastic?) bottle, and would I have to go to court to fight a paper(or plastic?) ticket and pay the paper(plastic/digital?) money as a fine, and what the fine will have to be to cover this eco-violation? Any eco-friendly lawyers have a clue?

i saw a switch from paper bottles to over population. i imagine something terrible will come along to clear out some of our human population as it always does. probably some kind of funky virus that has no cure. this is all quite depressing. honestly i don't care to fantasise about where the world is going, or i'd have no reason to get up and enjoy my day. my suggestion to you all is not to worry so much, because we're so far from being helped at this point that it's really going to be mother nature's 'wrath' or for you cynics, her blessing that puts things in check. if we can not blow eachother up before that time, that is.