SANBWA provides bottled water manufacturers with environmental standards

Johannesburg – September 2008 – Following the establishment a year ago of an environmental committee, the South African National Bottled Water Association (SANBWA) has now issued its members with official environmental guidelines aimed at cradle to grave improvement of members’ environmental stewardship.

The environmental guidelines form part of the revised SANBWA Guidelines & Standards.

“Although, collectively, SANBWA members produce 90% of all the bottled water consumed in South Africa, the amount of groundwater used in the production of that bottled water is only 18 litres per sec (about 1 550 cubic metres per day) – which is the amount needed to irrigate an 18-hole golf course,” says SANBWA Technical Manager, Charlotte Metcalf. “Even so, we believe that the industry has a responsibility to continuously improve its protection and conservation of water resources wherever possible and also contribute to reducing the consumption of energy resources.

“Our production standards and guidelines for members have always been extremely stringent – considerably exceeding even the latest requirements of the legislation governing the production of bottled water. What we have done now is add specific environmental standards on which members will be formally audited every year. The environmental standards account for 10% of the full operational audit.

“As the SANBWA logo is now accepted by consumers as a guarantee of the safety and quality of water carrying the logo, not being able to use it reduces the bottler’s credibility in the market.

”In other words, the SANBWA logo is now also a guarantee to consumers of the excellence of the bottler’s environmental stewardship.”

SANBWA’s environmental standards include measures for protecting source water, ensuring the sustainability of the source, preventing contamination of the source, and demonstrating practical social responsibility.

Part of the sustainability standard is measuring the usage of water per volume of finished product, including direct and indirect usage of water in activities such as sanitation and washing of floors and vehicles.

According to international best practice, all SANBWA member plants are required to reduce water usage to less than 1.7 by 2010.

Improved effluent management is also a focus for members, as is the disposal of solid waste such as paper, plastic, steel, aluminium, cardboard, glass, and wood, and liquid waste such as oil, waste syrup, and waste water treatment plant sludge.

SANBWA requires members to increase solid waste recovery to 71% of total waste, through implementation of programmes to reduce, re-use and recycle, by 2010.
 
Members are also expected to improve energy efficiency through initiatives as diverse and holistic as installing energy efficient lighting, changing their forklift fuel types, and integrating production effort through combined warehousing or widening delivery time windows.

In addition, proactively contributing to the recycling of the plastic bottles in which their water is bottled is mandatory for all members. The bottles are made from PolyEthylene Therephthalate (PET), an oil-based material that is the basis of most plastic beverage packaging and is 100% recyclable.

SANBWA member contributions to recycling initiatives include establishing a drop-off centre at their bottling facility and at distribution centers, putting a ‘please recycle’ sign on all their labels, and adhering to a documented policy regarding the use of suppliers who are members of Petco. a South African company that promotes and executes recycling of PET products. SANBWA members are also required to use recycling-friendly materials in packaging material.

In addition, SANBWA has associate membership of Petco - whose main members include manufacturers, importers, and sellers of PET products who pay to Petco a voluntary recycling levy of R200 per ton of PET converted into their products. The cost of that levy is built into the sales price of the products and so SANBWA members buying those products for their bottling plants make an indirect as well as a direct contribution to the recycling of PET.

“Since SANBWA was established eleven years ago, we’ve been focused on ensuring that consumers can make an informed choice about the bottled waters on offer in this country,” Metcalf say. “Now they can make that choice not just on the quality of the water inside the bottle but on the degree to which bottlers are involving themselves in their environmental stewardship