Environmental Impact Of Nestle Bottled Water Lifecycle

Sustainability is a useful process of using the presently available resources to fulfill the needs/requirements by not compromising the capability of upcoming generations to fulfill their needs in coming future. Nowadays, business concerns are focusing on environment sustainability and trying to produce those products and services which have least side effects on environment and users (Hopkins et.al, 2009). Sustainable products are those products which have a quality of not being damaging to the environment and do not reduce the natural resources, but focuses on the long-lasting environmental balance.

Main body

Every product or service produced by the manufacturing concerns has a lifecycle. This lifecycle starts when the raw material for its production is obtained and then used for producing the end product. Then, the raw material is converted into finished products. That product is purchased by customers and consumers and then it is disposed of. The lifecycle of products ends at the disposition phase (Day, 1981). Similarly, the bottled water produced by Nestle has a life cycle, and each phase of its lifecycle has certain environmental impacts.

For the production of bottled water, power is used by Nestle. Power is required in the form of electricity as well as natural gas, used to produce bottles and assembling them. Basic raw material at the plant is required in the form of portable water and soda powder etc. Electricity and natural gas is used throughout the production of bottled water and plastic bottles. The production of bottled water has different environmental impacts and these cannot be ignored (Shannon et. al., 2008).  Natural resources and electricity resources are used in huge amounts, thus causing them to decrease on daily basis. Chemical plant is used by Nestle for distilling the water and bottling plant for producing the plastic bottles. Both of the plants cause air pollutions because of chimneys and smoke, thus having a negative impact on the environment. The production phase can cause several types of negative environmental impacts due to emission of different gases including carbon dioxide, SO2 as well as NOx (Kargbo et.al, 2010). Such gases can cause climate change as well as ozone layer depletion. Eco toxicity is caused due to production and assembling of plastic bottles. After the production phase, distribution phase of bottled water appears. The transportation of bottled water from factory to the distributors/customers is done via big trucks, causing air pollution because of emission of CO2. CO2 gas can cause different types of diseases like cancer, respiratory issues etc. In next phase, consumer buys the bottled water, consumes it and then throws the bottle in the, causing land pollution. The best way to dispose of the plastic bottles is to send them to the recycling plant. In recycling phase, resources like electricity and gas are used, causing dangerous gas emissions and leaving a negative impact on the environment.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the major environmental impacts of Nestle bottled water include harms to the human health, reduction of natural ecosystem quality and reduction in the natural resources due to their usage. Nestle can overcome by using solar energy, producing electricity through water treatment plant and building indoor chimneys., recycling is highly important to decrease the negative environmental impact (Gleick and Cooley, 2009). So, Nestle must recycle bottles and other waste material used in the production.

References

Day, G.S., 1981. The product life cycle: analysis and applications issues. The Journal of Marketing, pp.60-67

Gleick, P.H. and Cooley, H.S., 2009. Energy implications of bottled water, Environmental Research Letters, 4(1), p.014009

Hopkins, M.S., Townend, A., Khayat, Z., Balagopal, B., Reeves, M. and Berns, M., 2009 The business of sustainability: what it means to managers now. MIT Sloan Management Review, 51(1), p.20.

Kargbo, D.M., Wilhelm, R.G. and Campbell, D.J., 2010. Natural gas plays in the Marcellus shale: Challenges and potential opportunities. Environmental Science & Technology, 44(15), pp.5679-5684

Shannon, M.A., Bohn, P.W., Elimelech, M., Georgiadis, J.G., Mariñas, B.J. and Mayes, A.M., 2008. Science and technology for water purification in the coming decades. Nature, 452(7185), pp.301-310