5 reasons to give up on serving water in plastic bottles.

Water in disposable plastic bottles is a staple when serving in restaurants and offices. It seems obvious, as plastic bottles are a convenient and hygienic way of providing drinks when needed. But as consumers grow awareness of plastic pollution, water in plastic bottles is no longer welcome on our tables.

Here are the most common reasons for dropping water in plastic bottles in restaurants, bistros and also at work.

Reason #1: Plastic badly affects our environment

It takes 500 years for a plastic bottle to decompose. 86% of plastic bottles end up in landfills and they won’t be processed or reused in any way. It is so for two reasons. Either the bottles have been made of non-recyclable material, or the recycling has been skipped due to negligence or lack of recycling technology.

As a result, plastic bottle waste cumulates uncontrollably in dumpsites and also outside them, let alone the Great Pacific garbage patch size of France.

Reason #2: Water in plastic bottles is expensive

Facts are facts: water itself makes only 4% of the final price of bottled water. The remaining 96% includes packaging, distribution, storage and marketing.

If you audit your monthly expenses for bottled water in your restaurant or at the office, it may turn out that using tap water is a cost-wise alternative.

The reason you stick to bottled water is that the water available at your premises just doesn’t meet your preferences in terms of taste and smell. Common solutions, such as under sink water filters or water dispensers, can solve these problems right away and are surely more cost-efficient than buying bottled water.

The initial investment in a set of water filters may be close to your monthly expenses on plastic bottled water, but it will pay off in the long run. Additionally, the installation is usually fuss-free and can be done by anyone in under 30 minutes.

Reason #3: Stocking bottled water requires planning and logistics

This one may not be apparent, but keeping a sufficient number of bottles at your restaurant or in your office calls for extra resources: time and space.

If you handle shopping by yourself, stocking on bottled water in bulk requires time-planning, a delivery car and a pair of strong arms to carry the bottles.

When the customer traffic is high you could run out of bottled water quickly. To cover the shortage you must fetch water by yourself or delegate an employee to do it for you. And even if you outsource food and drink shopping, low stock can happen anytime and you will need to replenish somehow.

Let us put it in the cliché way – filtered tap water will save you time and money. Tasty water will be always close at hand and every guest will be pampered without downtime.

Reason #4: Plastic bottles may be hazardous to your health

If the water bottles are made of improper, low quality plastic, it may have a negative impact on health. Each food-grade packaging, including plastic water bottles, should be labelled with the type of plastic and additives it has been made of.

The lack of such labels is a sign that the plastic used for making the bottles should not be used with food and may contain perilous substances, such as BPA and phthalates.

What is also worth mentioning, empty PET bottles cannot be reused in any way, including water storage and serving. They are single-use only, as microplastic particles may be released from the packaging into the water.

Reason #5: Tap water composition and taste are equal to bottled water

Overall tap water composition doesn’t vary much from regular bottled water, and the same is for the water taste (excluding healing waters used for disease treatment).

When it comes to bottled water, slight differences in taste could be detected between water brands, but to be frank, they usually taste the same – neutral. Some producers oftentimes filter water with reverse osmosis to even out the water taste and to make it more appealing to the customers.

Such water treatment can be done in your restaurant or your office as well with a standard RO water filtering system.

Alternative ways to serve water in restaurants and offices

Several sustainable solutions help limit the use of plastic bottles in restaurants and offices and provide great-tasting water. The most common are:

• under sink water filters, easy to install, with minimum maintenance
• water dispensers, provide hot, cold and sparkling water on-site

Regarding the water filter technology, there are also a few options to consider, depending on the water quality at your premises, and the final result you want to obtain:

• Bluesoft+
• reverse osmosis
• ultrafiltration
• softening resin and mechanical filtration

Plastic consumption got definitely out of hand. Luckily, this trend is in retreat. Consumers have finally stopped turning a blind eye to the problem and started to replace plastic with more sustainable materials.

Consumers’ choices influenced hospitality businesses and workplaces as well. This caused restaurants and office supply departments to gradually cut down on plastic bottles. Serving on-site filtered water in restaurants or using water dispensers at work is now a thing. Let’s keep it trending!