“Boxed water is better” reads the slogan of the Michigan based company Boxed Water. Their mission is to create a better way of providing pure water in the most sustainable way possible. Is that actually true?
Unfortunately, I feel as if this company has fell under the phenomena of “Green-washing” First and foremost, what is “green-washing”? CorpWatch,( a non-profit that works toward keeping track of U.S. companies on social responsibility) describes it as “the phenomena of socially and environmentally destructive corporations, attempting to preserve and expand their markets or power by posing as friends of the environment.” Meaning that nowadays with the sudden urgency for preserving our planet, companies have turned to using that state of mind to trick us into a false sense of sustainability.
Nonetheless, what does this have to do with Boxed Water? For the most part, packaging water in a mostly-paper carton is probably more sustainable than using a plastic or glass bottle. For example, the bottles are lightweight and the packaging can lay flat, in a manner that they can fit more into a smaller amount of space. Which reduces their carbon footprint by using the least amount of transportation while being able to increase their amount of production.
As for the material itself and its sustainability, it is kind of up in the air. The packaging itself is called an aseptic carton, which most of it is made of paper but the rest is a weird lasagna of layers of polyethylene-plastic and aluminum. Which is both good and bad. The good being that paper is fully-renewable. Yet the weird mix of materials in their packaging can make recycling problematic. Most consumers would toss the boxes into the recycling bin or trash, however, because of the different kinds of materials that are mixed together, many recycling plants do not have the tech to fully sort out everything. While most plastic and glass bottles are widely accepted.
So is water in boxes the true way for a sustainable future? No, it’s really not. In short, any single use water container is extremely wasteful of not only raw material but energy as well. Not to mention, but any single-use water container is completely unnecessary. The true alternative would be to just plan ahead and carry a refillable water bottle. That is, unless in an extreme emergency where clean water isn’t available.