BlueTriton, the company that owns Arrowhead brand, has been taking water from San Bernardino springs for more than 100 years

California has ordered the company that owns Arrowhead bottled water to stop using some of the natural springs it has utilized for more than a century, following a years-long campaign by environmentalists to stop the operation.

Regulators on Tuesday voted to significantly reduce how much water BlueTriton – the owner of the Arrowhead brand – can take from public lands in the San Bernardino mountains. The ruling is a victory for community groups who have said for years that the bottled water firm has drained an important creek that serves as a habitat for wildlife and helps protect the area from wildfires.

Arrowhead bottled water traces its roots to a hotel at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains that first opened in 1885 and began selling bottled spring water from its basement in 1906. But environmental and community groups say the company has never had permission to take water from the springs in the San Bernardino national forest.

The state water resources control board agreed that BlueTriton does not have permission to use the water and ordered the company to stop. The order does not ban the company from taking any water from the mountain, but it significantly reduces how much it can take.

      • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You see it all the time.

        Facebook became “Meta” ,Comcast became “Xfinity”, and I’m sure theres plenty of other examples.

        • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I think that had more to do with symbolizing a change in the direction of the company (ie: metaverse) and also a global name for a variety of products (instead of just Facebook) rather than just trying to hide who they are. They don’t even have any Meta-branded products. Facebook is still Facebook, Instagram is still Instagram, and WhatsApp is still WhatsApp.

          • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I can see your point but it more so comes off as a “rebrand”. Trying to distance themselves from what they used to be so hopefully people forget all the shit they pulled.

            That said, it very well may be just an attempt to shift the direction of a company but I highly doubt thats really the motive or the only intention.

            • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Trying to distance themselves from what they used to be so hopefully people forget all the shit they pulled.

              People don’t open the Facebook app or log into Facebook.com and forget all the shit they pulled because they changed their name to Meta.

      • Psythik@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        They’ve already removed their logo from several products (ex: Nestlé Pure Life is just Pure Life now). Now you have to check back of the label more closely to avoid them. But rebranding would make that more difficult. Instead of actually stopping the human rights violations they rather just do this. It’s disgusting.

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s wild to me that public resources like water are given, not sold, to corporations like Nestle- who then go on to lobby for less public spending on water systems, and who mass-produce those shitty bottles that end up everywhere.

    Charge them royalties for taking water from springs, make it cheaper for nestle to buy water from a utility.

  • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    BlueTriton (depressingly corporate garbage name, btw) is still basically Nestlé.

    Reporting shouldn’t be allowed to further obfuscate the corporate hierarchies involved in fucking up everyone’s lives. If reporters included all the arcane structural and legal bullshit that corporations pull in order to escape even the slightest sliver of responsibility (and spin public perception), the average reader would be much more aware of the corporatocratic hellscape in which we live.

    Edit: added a bit because it’s technically not Nestlé but that’s the whole problem as the technicality is about as far as it goes…

    • ares35@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      there is a genuine need, and it has its place, but that place is not being mass-produced and sold for ridiculous profits at the expense of the environment.

      • lobut@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I mean, it’s a microcosm but I remember a friend in uni refusing to drink tap or Brita water. He’d just keep cases and cases of water by his mini fridge and just plow threw them.

        I got upset with my sister in law because she’ll buy bottled water when I had a water filter in our fridge. Hell, you can boil it if you’re really uncertain. She said there was stuff about chemicals and I said the plastic for the water probably isn’t any better for you.

            • Zink@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              Think of how many bottles of water you can get for $10. Anything from event prices to Costco prices, doesn’t matter.

              For $10 I get about a thousand gallons of tap water. I have a back yard pond, so I think in terms of bulk quantity cost of tap water, lol. Technically the sewer charge is about another $10 for that same amount of water.

              The water is pretty good, and tastes just about perfect to me once it’s run through the cheap filter in our refrigerator.

              IMO the worst part of bottled water is the plastic, plus the thought of shipping literal water around the country/world.

      • eek2121@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We could use something other than plastic. We should be banning the use of single-use plastics everywhere.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I am sure emergency workers would rather not have to haul around water in glass containers after a disaster. If you have another material that is cheap, can be injected molded, bends instead of breaking, only impacts humans under mass exposure, and lightweight plesse let people know.

          • eek2121@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Aluminum is lighter than glass. Cardboard can be treated so that it holds fluid as well (and can still be made recyclable)

            Regardless, plastic requires fossil fuels to make. It needs to go.

            I have aluminum cups that can be (hand) washed/reused/recycled. Most plastic cannot be recycled

            The tech is there, companies just need to be incentivized to use it.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I don’t know how the chemistry works, but we had aluminum cups and they were somehow taking the calcium in the water and concentrating it into little deposits on the bottom of the cup which were hard to get off. I switched back to glass.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Alright so go and do it. I have done some plastic extruder machine control systems. Let me know when you need my help. It is pretty crazy to me that there is this really simple solution that no one on earth is trying and there is a shitton of money to be made but it is possible.

              • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                1 year ago

                Are you missing the point that plastic is used because it is cheaper, not because it is better for humanity and nature?

                It’s like saying “so go ahead and fix the climate, if fixing the climate is so good for us”. What exactly do you think the problem is?

          • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            Thermoses are commonly used, and they even have a vacuum inside!

            If you don’t care about keeping the internal temperature, there’s a lot of options for good reusable water containers. Why should we even use disposable containers if we can avoid it?