Marketing Messages

This week an article was brought to my attention about an alternative to bottled water. Boxed water. Boxed Water Is Better is a boxed water company that is trying to be kinder to the environment by making recyclable boxes for water rather than using plastic. These boxes are packed flat, therefore reducing the carbon footprint even more, and shipped to a filler. The filler then takes the flat packed boxes and prepares them to hold water and fills them with municipal filtered water which is sold at $1.50 per box.

Now at first I thought this sounded interesting, then I thought about it some more and realized that its a bit redundant. Don't get me wrong, its a wonderful, sustainable alternative to bottled water, but there are some other alternatives that are even more eco-friendly. What about a reusable water bottle? Just look at the price comparison:
Boxed water: $1.50 per box, multiple boxes needed!!!
Reusable Water Bottle: $10.00 (for a nice one) and you only need to pay once!!
So over time, a reusable bottle is cheaper. You can use it over and over. Your tap water is actually better for the earth than packaged water is anyway.

So the lesson here is that sometimes, even thought you're being told that there's an eco-friendly alternative, it might not be the best alternative. And I'm not trying to pick on this boxed water idea, I'm just using it as an example. Boxed water is my example, can you think of any others? Any ideas that are better, but not the best? Let me know!