Product Assessment

Name Institution Professor Date of submission Declining consumer product: Bottled water As years go by, the market for bottled water in the US is taking a nose dive after growing steadily for years. In other countries worldwide, bottled water is on a steady path of growth and popularity but in the US it is not so. According to research by the beverage marketing Corporation, the market for bottled water is expected to increase by only 6.7% this year. This is a miniature increase observed so far this decade. The demand and consumption for bottled water in the US has been high over the years but recently it has been facing some opposition. This has been brought about by the decision by several firms and institutions to go local by preferring tapped water over packaged products. This includes schools, municipalities and restaurants. The reasons considered for this switch ranges from social justice, economic and environmental reasons (Block 2013). The cost of bottled water per cubic meter sold in many industrialized nations is $500 to $1000. This is a lot of money compared to the $0.50 for municipal water in certain states including California. In addition, up to 40% of bottled water comes from the countriy`s water supplies and this implies that bottled water is not necessarily cleaner than tap water as many people tend to believe. The energy required for the processing, packaging and transporting of bottled water is also very high making it expensive. Also the cost of disposing of plastic bottles annually is quite high at about $70 million. This is because most of the waste plastic bottles (approximately 2 million tons) are sent to landfills as compared to the 23% of the bottles that are recycled by cities and municipalities. This is according to the world watch institute report of 2007. Consumer preferences are being turned by such concerned. At the US mayors` conference more than 200 mayors...