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“Bottled water has
already turned tap water into a commodity, and corporations are stepping up
their efforts to privatize public water systems.”
--Letter to the New York
Times by Gigi Kellett, campaigns director, ''Think Outside the
Bottle,'' Corporate Accountability International.
“At the same time, to ensure maximum profits, these
companies are lobbying to weaken water quality standards, and pushing for trade
agreements that hand over the U.S. water resources to foreign corporations.”
--From the webpage of Public Citizen
“There is growing concern about the impacts of bottled water
on…people’s confidence in our public water systems…At the same time, there is a
$22 billion funding gap between what cities need to spend on water
infrastructure and the money available to them.”
--Press release
from Corporate Accountability International
“Faced with the suddenly well-documented freshwater crisis,
governments and international institutions are advocating a Washington
Consensus solution: the privatization and commodification of water. Price
water, they say in chorus; put it up for sale and let the market determine its
future.”
--Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke’s “Who Owns Water” in The Nation
“‘More than 90 percent of the environmental impacts from a
plastic bottle happen before the consumer opens it,’ said Dr. Allen
Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Oil
for plastic, oil for shipping, oil for refrigeration -- and in the end, most of
the effort goes to landfills.”
--Bill Marsh’s “A
Battle Between the Bottle and the Faucet” in the New York Times
“Pepsi
(NYSE:PEP) has the nation's number-one-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with
13% of the market. Coke's (NYSE:KO) Dasani is number two, with 11% of the
market. Both are simply purified municipal water--so 24% of the bottled water
we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience.”
--Nigel Cox’s “Message
in a Bottle” in Fast Company
“Bottled-water
companies like Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are engaged in a constant search for
new water supplies to feed the insatiable appetite of this business. In rural
communities all over the world, corporate interests are buying up farmlands,
indigenous lands, wilderness tracts and whole water systems, then moving on
when sources are depleted.”
--Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke’s “Who Owns Water” in The Nation
“Our recycling rate for PET is only 23%, which means we pitch
into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year--more than $1 billion worth of
plastic.”
--Nigel Cox’s “Message
in a Bottle” in Fast Company
“In Michigan,
Nestle received $9.6 million in tax breaks to site their Ice Mountain bottled water plant in Mecosta County. Yet in Detroit
more than 20,000 families have had their water shut off because of inability to
pay their water bills when the state refused to provide a subsidy.”
--Sierra Club Bottled Water Campaign website
“Once you understand the resources mustered to deliver the
bottle of water, it's reasonable to ask as you reach for the next bottle, not
just "Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I'm about to spend?"
but "Does the value equal the impact I'm about to leave behind?"”
--Nigel Cox’s “Message
in a Bottle” in Fast Company
If you want to give up water in plastic bottles, why not join me in using the ultra-cool reusable water bottle?
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