Falsom Lake (which is used to bottle Nestle’s Pure Life & Arrowhead water brands) during a drought in January 2014.

One of the most affected states by droughts in the US, California is looking at yet another water crisis this year. Due to the lack of water in the area, Nestle is facing protests against them bottling water in California. The company’s officials have announced a new water re-cycling system that will reduce the usage of fresh water.

Nestle’s facility in Modesto is looking forward to installing a new filtration system that will help them reduce the usage of fresh water, instead the new system will use waste water generated through the production process of Carnation condensed milk. Waste water will be used for cooling and cleaning the entire factory, which is now the largest water bottler in the United States.

The Head of Nestle’s operation Jose Lopez said that from an economic standpoint their current process makes no sense and their new change is something that everyone will have to adopt soon. The move came as an answer to protests in front of the company’s bottling factory in Sacramento held throughout March this year. The fourth year of drought inspired activists to start a petition which was signed by more than 82,000 people asking Nestle to stop bottling water in California.

Lopez tried to calm people down saying that the new system will save up to 71 percent after the completion of phase one next year. Also, this new method of water usage will save the company around 7 million dollars.

The new plant system will save around 9 percent of the total amount of water the company uses for their Arrowhead and Pure Life bottled water brands. The Swiss company plans to reduce its water usage by 40 percent in the next 10 years with this system. One of its factories in Mexico is completely water free, using only liquid left over after the production of Nido powder.

Adam Scow, California director at Food & Water Watch is calling state officials to ban Nestle from bottling water claiming that resources like water should be put out as a public resource, not a method to generate private corporate profit.

Nestle rejects requests to give up on bottling water since the company uses just 4 million cubic meters of water each year, this equates to less than 0.008 percent of the water used in California. Some other companies like Starbucks gave up the fight and moved their facilities to other states.

Nestle blames both the water infrastructure in California and incentives the government have in place for companies to waste water. Lopez says big water users are likely to increase pumping if they expect mandatory cuts are coming, which is an incentive to increase water wastage. The new resource usage idea is spreading to other factories Nestle owns in the US, but also in South Africa and Pakistan.