An appeal to 'Aqua'

With the rainy season setting in fast, the usual floods annually occurring in the city streets can be a nightmare for Jakartans. A reason that contributes to flooding is clogged gutters. In most canals around the city, one can see many used plastic water bottles blocking the drainage of water.

It appears that the recycling of water bottles has not been effective. Second, plastic is not biogradable for hundreds of years.

The Aqua brand has become synonymous with bottled drinking water. Even for other brands, people tend to ask for Aqua. I suggest that PT Aqua Golden Mississippi, arguably the leading market player in the mineral water industry in Indonesia, set aside some of their resources and work hand-in-hand with the local administration to help implement a Gutter Cleaning Campaign ("GCC" for lovers of acronyms). It would show that the company indeed cares and is sensitive to the environment.

And what is the need to use plastic bottles for drinking water anyway? Could the industry not use "biogradable" carton boxes similar to milk or fruit juice containers? If this is possible, the need for recycling used bottles (or small competitors probably misusing "Aqua" empty bottles) would totally disappear. I would appreciate if someone from the bottled water industry would enlighten me on this.

D. CHANDRAMOULI

Jakarta