What We Want

by Brad Rowen

We all have that friend or relative with whom eating out is a chore. It starts in the car.

“Where would you like to eat?” we say, bracing ourselves for the inevitable reply.

“Oh, anywhere is fine,” they assure us. “You choose.” And thus, the game is afoot.

If you’re like me, you’ll start in on a list. Joe’s? Ah, no, went there last week. Eatorama? Well, maybe.

Sensing no enthusiasm, you again invite suggestions. But none are forthcoming. After divining some destination, or perhaps just covering your eyes and letting the car decide, you are at last seated in front of a menu.

Hmm, your guest intones.

“We’ll need a minute,” you tell the waiter.

“I don’t like their chicken.” Right. “The beef is too spicy.” So… “I’m looking”

Your guest is not unique. In fact, many of us have an easier time announcing what we don’t want than naming what we DO want.

It’s no different when we talk about the environment. Our list of don’t wants is long, and generally agreed upon. We don’t want oceans littered with plastic; we don’t want an increasing dependence on petroleum, scarce at home, or even worse, overseas. We don’t landfills cluttering the landscape. We don’t want soil contaminated with waste that will last unchanged for hundreds of years. If we try to list everything we don’t want, we could be here all day.

But just what DO we want? Is it even on the menu? Like the discriminating diner, even if we can’t name it off the tops of our heads, we will know it when we see it. For instance, it will be made from renewable resources; it will be clean and portable every time we use it; it will be truly disposable, without leaving a mark on the land we love. In fact, it will be Backyard Compostable, so that it can actually enrich the earth to which we return it.

We’ve given a name to what we want, and what we think you’ll want too. And because we like clarity, in a world where it can be so hard to find, we’ve given the company and the product the very same name: Paper Water Bottle. We want a bottle made from renewable materials (pulp fiber). We want a bottle that does its job simply and elegantly. We want a bottle that lasts as long as we need it, and then goes away.

We want, in short, is A Refreshing Alternative.