Seriously. What is the use of this plastic bags? It is clearly not strong enough to support the weight should I chose to use the bag as a … bag, and it is clearly not meant to act as a measure of protection.
Is this the result of a food safety law, or is it just another wasted addition to provide buyers with the illusion that they are buying a higher grade product?
I don’t know what the point is, but it is a pet hate of mine in the office when people do not take them off and leave them dirty over the water barrel itself.
Surely we do not need these silly plastic bags? The top comes with more plastic and then there is a final layer of plastic in the sticker that goes over the hole, which you must remove in order to pierce the thing to use!
How much would it cost to treat the water instead, and provide drinkable water, straight from the tap to every home, office or public facility?
Maybe not too much more than the cost of all these bottles purchased every week?
I don’t want to sound like a proponent of them, but may offer a suggestion as to why they are used?
If the bottle is at all wet or cold (perspiring) in a hot, dusty environment like the Beijing summer, then the dirt will get all over the thing. This wouldn’t affect the quality of water on the inside obviously, but would affect the appearance and handling of the jug.
Apperently you are not a water delivery man. The purpose is to keep the bottles clean during transport which often involves going through dusty or unsanitary environments. It also makes the bottles easier to handle in loading/unloading to/from trucks, bicycles or scooters.
There are 3 potential solutions; (a) change to highly recycled/recycleable paper; (b) Change to recycled/recyclable plastic (the existing plastic is already recycleable, actually, so what’s stopping you?); (c) have the delivery man collect plastic from priors for reuse/recycle (but is that really necesary?)
I think you must consider when water is produced and packaged for delivery, the ultimate means and route of delivering each bottle is not known; what is known is customers are expecting a clean and sanitary product for health reasons. Would you accept a bottle of water that had been splashed with dirty water from the street? If you lifted it and got mud on your clothes would that be the next complaint?
I think there are many ways to reduce, reuse and recyle packaging materials, but where food is concerned, some form of protective exterior packaging is required and with water bottles it’s protective caps and seals, and the afore-mentioned bags.
I’d like to note that unlike parts of Europe of the US where water is delivered without bags buy transporting them in big closed trucks they no doubt save the bag but burn a lot of petrol and make a lot of CO2 in the process; in China, most local delivery (except big industrial users) is by bicycle of scooter. I’m wondering about the energy balance and CO2 balance between these cases (assuming the plastic is recycled).
Question: What do you do with that bag once removed? Recycle, I hope.
Ko – you are correct in that I am not in the water delivery business, and yes, the use of the plastic bags is to keep them clean (a fact I donfirmed through several conversations with delivery men).
With regard to the rest of your comment, I should note that the bottle in the picture is a 19l jug. Not a 1L throw away. So, your last 2 solutions are not really applicable to the case above. although, I would agree with them were I speaking to the waste created by the 1L water bottle industry.
However, that said, you and John have forgotten perhaps the easiest and cheapest solution to making sure the bottles are clean.
A wet rag.
As for what I do with the bags, I have to unfortunately trash them. they are full of holes (so I cannot reuse them), and there is no system in place for me to recycle them. I am sure at some point in Shanghai’s sort system the bag is pulled out, but of course that requires additional energy as well.
In short, this is a vanity item that has no real link to sanitation or water quality, and the vanity of having a clean water bottle does not justify the need for these bags.
R