Drinks

No, Canned Water Will Not Save the Planet

Ever & Ever believes people care enough about the planet to stop drinking water from disposable plastic bottles. But not enough to give up packaged liquids.

Photographer: Craig Barritt/Getty Images North America

In early June, the Museum of Plastic appeared in New York’s SoHo. Created to highlight the problem of ocean plastic, the space featured such exhibits as a giant receipt for $200 billion—the projected revenue for water in plastic bottles by 2022—listing other uses for the money, such as paying off the Fyre Festival debt.

The pop-up was a marketing campaign to introduce Ever & Ever, a $1.99 bottle-shaped aluminum can with a screw-off top filled with soft-tasting water, balanced with electrolytes. The company says it’s coming to Walmart.com and Amazon.com “soon” and then to local convenience stores. It’s just one of a growing number of products being pitched as an alternative to the 50 billion single-use plastic bottles Americans use annually. Those consumers are more concerned about plastic in oceans than climate change, according to a new study by the Shelton Group; 80 percent said they would buy an alternative to single use plastic if given the option.