This biodegradable bottle will compost back into soil. Unfortunately, there are very few people, and even fewer municipalities, composting these days. Hence, the corn bottle will still take up space in landfills and take years...and years...to break down.
Will biodegradable bottles convince water drinkers that bottled water is now 'green'? Or are these corn bottles merely beautiful stepping stones on the way to water drinkers carrying around their own steel or glass bottles -- and thus avoiding any type of bottle that is tempting throw away after one use?
As usual, we are living in a world in which the easy route in the short term is rarely the correct route in the long term. So, yes, this is a greenwashing decision by Ritz Carlton, in that corn bottles are not a good long term solution to drinking water but they are positive marketing for the hotel chain. However, since corn bottles are perhaps better for the environment than are petro bottles, let's give Ritz-Carlton a star for trying.
One reason that corn bottles may be very unhelpful in the long run is that, just as using corn for biofuel takes food out of circulation for the replacement of a petro product, so does using corn for plastic create the same scenario. Yet we need to decrease petro use AND increase food production for the soon-to-be eight billion earth dwellers -- not decrease BOTH petro and food production. Until Ritz-Carlton and other corporations understand and respond to this basic demographic and ecological fact, their news is merely produced in varying shades of gray...neither good nor bad, but impressive in the manner of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
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