thinking twice about that square bottle
If you read this blog on a normal basis, you’ll realize that I’m an avid consumer. I like new products, I love creative packaging, and I’m willing to try just about anything. My affinities for such “pretty things” lead me to buy a bottle of Fiji Water back in my sophomore year of college in 1999 because I thought the bottle would make a great makeshift flower vase in my dorm room. Ever since then, I’ve picked up a bottle every now and then for consumption when it wasn’t the $5 option, and honestly I never thought twice about it.
In recent years, I’ve tried really hard to lessen my consumption of one-time-use bottles… especially for water, so when I read the incriminating evidence of Fiji in this month’s Mother Jones magazine, I had to say I was more than shocked. It’s definitely anything but “green” despite its claims, and the fact that a military junta is getting power from a product isn’t quite wonderful either. I will say the worst part, though, is knowing that there are typhoid outbreaks in Fiji among the islanders and their water supply, as they ship this clean water across the Pacific for us to drink.
I’m sure that I consume a lot of bad products made by bad people, but once I’m enlightened, I rarely go back to support the brands. Honestly, I have a severe guilt trip if I want to buy things from Anthropologie based on their manufacturing process overseas. I love their styles, crave their items, but unless it’s a boutique brand I know or it says “Made in the UK or US”… I stay away. 
I’ll be staying away from the pretty square bottles now as well… and hoping that VOSS doesn’t decide to dash all celebrity-status-water hopes as well.
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As President of FIJI Water, I encourage readers to read our response to the article, which we have posted on our blog: http://blog.fijigreen.com/2009/08/fiji-water-responds-to-mother-jones-article/ I also encourage readers to post any questions they might have on our blog, where all reasonable queries will be responded to by employee representatives.
We strongly disagree with the author’s premise that because we are in business in Fiji that somehow legitimizes a military dictatorship. We bought FIJI Water in November 2004, when Fiji was governed by a democratically elected government. FIJI Water does not nor will ever actively support the government of the day. The government does not speak for us and we cannot and will not speak for the government. What we can do is try to help the socio-economic development of Fiji as much as we can by running a world-class company that provides much-needed jobs, health care, education, and clean drinking water to the people who live in the villages surrounding our company and the greater community of Fiji.
John Cochran
President, FIJI Water
I’m so happy to read this. I hate Fiji water. I can’t believe I used to buy this in college, too, because the bottle was pretty. DUDE. We don’t need water imported from Fiji, in a plastic bottle. We have water we can drink from HERE. I know we’re lucky to live in a place where we can drink from the tap, but even those who can’t drink tap don’t need imported water in a plastic bottle. No way.
Imported from China then to Fiji and back here…. no thanks