Research confirms bottled water consumption driven by… thirst?

While bottled water may not be an environmentally sustainable choice, there is little discernible difference in environmental attitudes between those who drink it and those who don’t, according to research by Roy Morgan.

In an average seven-day period, one-quarter of the Australian population aged 14+ (4.9 million people) drink bottled water - a figure that has remained steady since 2010. That’s a lot of plastic bottles; however, the bottled water drinkers are actually more likely to agree with the statement ‘If we don’t act now, we’ll never control our environmental problems’ (79% vs 77% of non-bottled water drinkers).

They are, however, slightly more likely to believe that ‘Environmentally friendly products are overpriced’ (70% vs 67%) and slightly less likely to agree that ‘At heart, I’m an environmentalist’ (58% vs 61%).

So, what significant differences are there between the two groups? Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the bottled water drinkers are thirstier!

It seems that people who drink bottled water have a greater taste for other non-alcoholic beverages as well. Compared to people who don’t drink bottled water, they are more likely to drink soft drinks of every flavour (62% vs 45%), packaged fruit juices (38% vs 29%), cordial (16% vs 13%), coconut water (5% vs 2%) and sports/energy drinks (17% vs 7%) in an average seven-day period.

“Curiously, the people who do drink it hold fairly similar environmental attitudes to those who don’t. Where they differ is in their heightened tendency to drink other commercially available non-alcoholic beverages as well as bottled water - a tendency that seems to be linked to their age,” says Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research.

“Our data shows that younger people from the Generations Y and Z are not only more likely than other generations to drink bottled water in an average seven days, they are also more likely to consume other beverages such as soft drinks, fruit juice and sports/energy drinks,” she said.