We cover tech news here at TechCrunch, so I was surprised to see a 5 lb overnight shipment arrive from Pepsi containing three half liter bottles of Aquafina water. The reason for the special delivery? The company is launching a new plastic bottle that contains half the plastic content of the old bottles. Less plastic = less landfill weight, less carbon, less bad stuff in general, they say.
I’m concerned that Pepsi decided to promote its new “eco-friendly” product by proactively shipping, via Fedex overnight, 5 lb boxes of the water to press around the country. And then sending a second batch either in error or to reinforce the message. That’s not very eco-friendly (if anyone knows the carbon cost of sending these boxes, let me know, then multiply it by hundreds or thousands of press). It all seems a little wasteful.
Anyway, after all this carbon spending and the general effort involved in sending me six bottles of water I never requested, I thought I should at least put the product to the test. I don’t drink bottled water myself, since it’s less safe than tap water and way too expensive (see the clip from Bullshit below). But Laguna, my 105 lb chocolate lab, loves bottled water. And she loves to chew on stuff. So we brought her in for a special assignment to test Aquafina’s new Eco-fina water in the TechCrunch Lab. She reluctantly agreed.
First off was the taste test. She doesn’t look particularly enthusiastic in the picture above, but once I started pouring, she was definitely into it. She didn’t even wait for it to hit the bowl:
So Laguna definitely like the taste of Aquafina water (she also eats dirt, and enjoys licking my feet). Next was the durability test. It took her about ten seconds to destroy the bottle, which isn’t good. Pepsi removed about half the plastic from the new bottles, and they clearly aren’t going to hold up to any kind of sustained attacked from a large, well-toothed canine:
Overall I’d say that Aquafina water is absolutely good enough for my dog to drink, and the bottles make fun albeit short-lived chew toys to distract her.
Here’s that clip on just what you get with bottled water, if you’re interested: