Nature Conservancy profits from Crystal Light
Do you buy Crystal Light powdered drink products? If you do, head out to the market on March 22 because the company is giving 100 percent of the net profits from sales to the Nature Conservancy to help protect American rivers and lakes, including the Potomac River.
It's World Water Day, and the company so dependent on water says it will give no less than 
$350,000 and up to $750,000.
The money will go to four other projects besides the Potomac: the Colorado River, Great Lakes Basin, Meramec River (part of the Mississippi river) and Southern River. It will pay for an outreach and awareness campaign and an assessment of how to preserve the waterways.
If you don't know about the Potomac, here are some tidbits from the Nature Conservancy at Crystal Light:
It's called the “The Nation’s River,” and it flows 383 miles from its source in West Virginia through the nation’s capital and into the Chesapeake Bay. It provides drinking water to 4.3 million people in the DC metro area. It's threatened by rapid population growth and land use changes in its watershed.
For more information, go to www.Facebook.com/CrystalLight.
Baltimore Sun file photo of the Potomac in Harper's Ferry, W.Va./Monica Lopossay
Comments
Crystal Light is disgusting. And far from "green" I must say this is a disappointing thing to find on Baltimore's "green" blog.
Aspartame, Artificial colors, flavors, preservatives........
What's "green" is not drinking that crap, and saving all the waste and pollution that goes into making and distributing it.
Posted by: Brian Hughes | March 19, 2010 9:27 AM
I love Crystal Light drinks and I think it's great that they are making such a large donation to help the environment. Good for them!
Posted by: Peggy | March 22, 2010 4:10 PM
This story definitely has a place on a green blog! Kudos to Crystal Light for supporting The Nature Conservancy, as well as working to improve their own environmental practices. Crystal Light recently redesigned its packaging to reduce waste -- comparing finished cases, their new packaging uses 250 tons less material.*
If people who think drinking plain water is boring chose to refill water bottles and drink Crystal Light as an alternative to buying new bottled or canned drinks, they could save the earth from production of new plastic bottles and cans and the fuel consumption/greenhouse gas production costs of producing and moving those products to markets. Drinking water from your own watershed also keeps the water where it belongs, and prevents transfers out of other "basins" where it should remain.
And for the record, Crystal Light makes a line called "Pure Fitness" that has no artificial sweeteners, no artificial flavors or colors, and no preservatives.
*Web reference on redesign of packaging:
http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/367382-Kraft_redesigns_Crystal_Light_packaging_for_better_shelf_appeal_and_sustainability.php).
Posted by: Stephanie Flack | March 22, 2010 9:37 PM