Bottled beverages: toxic

Nestle boasts of its hard work at its improving water management, and it's clear that Nestle has improved. Nestle's report points out that people's calories from sugared drinks and alcohol has increased dramatically in recent years. It's just another reason for the obesity epidemic.

And it's a little hypocritical of Nestle to be claiming corporate social responsibility, given the amount of waste caused by the bottles. Please stop buying bottled water! Here in Christchurch, we have some of the finest water in the world, yet I see bottled water for sale everywhere.

Soft drinks are worse, in several ways. First, they are a large proportion of the waste. Second, their bottles are typically heavier than bottles for plain water. And third, the drinks - including the diet drinks - wreak havoc on human metabolism. Please stop buying soft drinks!

When I visited Puerto Escondido in 2001 and 2006, the city water supply was horrible. Indeed, most of Mexico has problems with water. Yet people spend an order of magnitude more on bottled water - produced by Coca Cola - than they would if they just got their piped supply sorted out! I can only speculate that Coke and Pepsi have the town fathers on their payrolls.