By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

Last summer, environmentalists took on the bottled water industry.
On their Web sites and in their press releases, many environmental groups pointed to bottled water as a prime example of an unnecessary product that uses scarce resources and adds more plastic to overtaxed landfills.
The industry’s growth did slow down.
But most industry experts - and even some environmentalists - concede that the outcry was not the reason.
Instead, it was a combination of higher prices, relatively cool weather and, perhaps most important, the maturity of the industry.
“We weren’t even selling refreshmentsize bottles of water until 1989,” said Kim E. Jeffery, chief executive of Nestle Waters, which sells Poland Spring, Perrier and five other branded waters.
“But the per-capita increase in bottled water use is growing, and will continue to grow.”
Mr. Jeffery maintained that bottled water would continue to sell briskly no matter how much criticism came its way.
Following are excerpts from that conversation:

Q. Tap water is not only more environmentally friendly than bottled water, but it is also less expensive.
Won’t that combination eventually woo consumers back to their faucets?
A. Bottled water wooed people away from soda and sports drinks, not taps.
About 70 percent of the beverages people drink come in packages.
All our research shows that if bottled water weren’t available, people would buy Gatorade, or fruit juice, or other sugared or diet beverages.
Some 16 percent say they would drink tap water - but you can’t go into a deli and ask for a bottle of tap water.

Q. You’ve maintained that bottled water actually helps the environment. Isn’t that counterintuitive?
A. We’re not perfect.
The entire consumer products industry is behind the curve on recycling, for example.
But we rely on a sustainable source of water, so we’ve always been conscious of conserving the springs and the land around them.

Q. Can you really justify using all that plastic?
A. We use less packaging than sodas or other convenience beverages.
Nestle Waters is rolling out Ecoshape, a 12.5 gram plastic bottle that holds half a liter of water. It’s about 15 percent lighter than our current bottles, and we use 10 to 15 percent less energy to make it. By year end, all our brands will use it.
Think of it - a half-liter bottle of Poland Spring will use less than half an ounce [14 grams] of plastic.
The bottles for carbonated beverages are twice as heavy .