Former South player John Lidgerwood in the news:
Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:52 pmhttp://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/0 ... iness.html
AN entrepreneur wants to sell one of the Territory's most plentiful assets - clean water.
John Lidgerwood, 40, plans to "harvest" the moonsoon and sell it as cartons of drinking water.
"Millions of litres of rainwater runs into the sea every year," he said. "It all goes to waste when people are crying out for good drinking water.
"Very few people collect their rainwater."
Brothers Harvey and Barry Lingard, who helped design Le Chunnel, the tunnel running between Britain and France, have shown interest in investing in the project.
Mr Lidgerwood said he wanted to set up a network of collection tanks throughout the Top End.
He hopes to persuade the Education Department to allow schools to house the tanks in return for a payment of 5c a litre.
"Each school could make up to $15,000 a year."
A gauge would indicate when the tanks were full.
Mr Lidgerwood wants to build a packaging and rain capture plant on a 124ha property at Acacia Hills, 48km south of Darwin as the cocky flies.
He would use a Chinese-made machine that fills 10 litre plastic bags, which would be put in cardboard boxes.
"I'm not interested in bottling the stuff." Mr Lidgerwood wants to harvest 300 30,000-litre tanks, plus a few 100,000-litre tanks.
He would hope to collect 15 million litres of water in the first year and sell it for $4 a box.
Within 20 years, the business could be selling 40 million 10-litre bags at $8.50 a box.
Mr Lidgerwood said he would call his company Glacier Water and sell the product to Asia.
"There's a huge potential market right on our doorstep," he said. "There's a tremendous demand for clean water in the world."
Bottled water is the fastest growing sector of the beverage industry — it is forecast to grow by 50 per cent worldwide over the next five years after a similar spurt in the past five years.
The industry is worth $6 billion a year. Bottled water — pure and flavoured — is expected to beat carbonated soft drink sales this year.
America is the fastest growing market — despite the fact that bottled water costs at least 250 times more than tap water.
AN entrepreneur wants to sell one of the Territory's most plentiful assets - clean water.
John Lidgerwood, 40, plans to "harvest" the moonsoon and sell it as cartons of drinking water.
"Millions of litres of rainwater runs into the sea every year," he said. "It all goes to waste when people are crying out for good drinking water.
"Very few people collect their rainwater."
Brothers Harvey and Barry Lingard, who helped design Le Chunnel, the tunnel running between Britain and France, have shown interest in investing in the project.
Mr Lidgerwood said he wanted to set up a network of collection tanks throughout the Top End.
He hopes to persuade the Education Department to allow schools to house the tanks in return for a payment of 5c a litre.
"Each school could make up to $15,000 a year."
A gauge would indicate when the tanks were full.
Mr Lidgerwood wants to build a packaging and rain capture plant on a 124ha property at Acacia Hills, 48km south of Darwin as the cocky flies.
He would use a Chinese-made machine that fills 10 litre plastic bags, which would be put in cardboard boxes.
"I'm not interested in bottling the stuff." Mr Lidgerwood wants to harvest 300 30,000-litre tanks, plus a few 100,000-litre tanks.
He would hope to collect 15 million litres of water in the first year and sell it for $4 a box.
Within 20 years, the business could be selling 40 million 10-litre bags at $8.50 a box.
Mr Lidgerwood said he would call his company Glacier Water and sell the product to Asia.
"There's a huge potential market right on our doorstep," he said. "There's a tremendous demand for clean water in the world."
Bottled water is the fastest growing sector of the beverage industry — it is forecast to grow by 50 per cent worldwide over the next five years after a similar spurt in the past five years.
The industry is worth $6 billion a year. Bottled water — pure and flavoured — is expected to beat carbonated soft drink sales this year.
America is the fastest growing market — despite the fact that bottled water costs at least 250 times more than tap water.
i heard a professor on the radio a few months ago & when asked he said that bottled water is no better for your health than tap water
