Fiji water is a prime example of the fact that, wherever there is an environmentally harmful product, someone will come along to tell you its actually quite green!

There are situations in which bottled water is a good thing. When traveling in countries without adequate sanitation it’s absolutely essential. Dehydration or other medical issues are of course good reason to buy a bottle and quaff away. Of course, it’s much better to carry around a reusable, eco-friendly container but there are occasions when bottled water is a necessary evil.

The thing is those occasions are rare. Guzzling down glorified city tap water from plastic bottles loaded with BPA -a lovely little chemical that messes with your hormones and endocrine system- is both stupid and unnecessary.

Bottled water, for most of us, is a completely and utterly unnecessary luxury. If you are from the US, UK or pretty much any developed country in the world, your tap water is completely safe to drink. You could drink from a public bathroom sink as long as you had a clean glass. You drink from bottled water because it’s more “convenient” and you have the money.

Of course bottled water companies are here with advertising campaigns to make sure you know that that’s ok (it’s actually quite stupid) and that drinking their bottled water is green (it’s not).

Fiji water, though, takes the cake. In March they took out a massive booth at the Natural Products Expo, part of a larger “hey we’re green now” campaign by the company. The booth featured a gigantic banner proclaiming “every drop is green”.

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Allow me free reign to mock Fiji for a moment. Let’s discuss what every drop of Fiji water is- and here’s a hint, it’s not green.

Every drop of Fiji water is imported from Fiji. That’s right, the Fiji that is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from the mainland United States. This company takes water, which can be found in rather large quantities in the US, all the way from Fiji to your neighborhood. Every drop of Fiji water represents thousands of miles in completely unecessary transportation and hundreds of gallons of fuel, all so you can drink expensive water from a pretty bottle.

Speaking of which, every drop of Fiji comes in a fancy plastic bottle. Every bottle represents more oil and more transportation, and every bottle represents loads of fun and nasty chemicals to make the bottle.

There is nothing more ridiculous than claiming that bottled water is somehow green. Perversely, that’s why it’s so susceptible for greenwashing. People want to believe that the things they want to do, but know are wrong, are actually green. Don’t fall for this stuff from Fiji. Every drop is greenwash.