Oct. 8, 2007 The world's biggest water bottlers are struggling to answer growing consumer concern over plastic bottle waste, Advertising Age reports.

Some industry watchers say the once-booming $16 billion bottled-water industry, dominated by Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi, is slowing down thanks to negative publicity surrounding single-use plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum products. Americans discard 38 billion plastic water bottles a year and it takes 1.5 billion barrels of oil to produce them, according to figures from Brita, the water-filtration company.

As trade groups advance claims that the bottled-water industry has been unfairly targeted (noting that bottled water is America's number-two beverage but accounts for just 0.33% of U.S. landfill waste), manufacturers have made progress in "light-weighting" their packaging reducing the amount of materials required for their bottles. In recent years, Coca-Cola has reduced its Dasani bottle weight 30%, to 16 grams. PepsiCo has reduced its Aquafina bottles nearly 40%, to 15 grams, and this month Nestle Waters is introducing a 12.5 gram bottle, down from 14.5 grams. Nestle says its downsized bottle had to be re-engineered so it could stand up, avoid leaks, and sustain suction.

Manufacturers are also exploring the "bottle to bottle" option, manufacturing new bottles from the materials recycled from old ones. Earlier this month Coca-Cola pledged $60 million to build new recycling plants, one of which will be the largest bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in the world.

Meanwhile, makers of reusable plastic bottles, including Nalgene and Brita, have seen their market share grow, the article reports.