Movies, Books, Politicians the Water Bottle is Under Siege

Take a plastic water bottle to your own hazard; the tide of widespread opinion is going against you. From popular rating documentaries, to articles and political debate, the biggest debate around is the horror of bottled water and the waste its industry forces.

The producing, transportation and removal of water in petrochemical plastic bottles demands big waste of water alongside energy, and pumps out huge quantities of greenhouse gases and waste.

Director of the new documentary ‘Tapped: get off the bottle’ Stephanie Soechtig claims “1500 water bottles end up in landfill every second – that’s 30 million water bottles a day! We wanted to show people just how much waste is generated by bottled water.” The crew behind Tapped are publicizing the documentary with an across-America roadshow, collecting money from donors to take down their water bottle use and changing their discarded plastic water bottle for a reusable stainless steel bottle. Download Tapped from Amazon or iTunes.

Another such film ‘The Story of Bottled Water’ was released on World Water Day in March. From the pen of Annie Leonard of the well-received ‘The Story of Stuff’, this new film shows the strategy that is used to convincing Americans into purchasing over hundreds of millions of bottles of water each week, as opposed to a few cents cost for a drink from the tap. See her film on You Tube.

With her book ‘Bottlemania’, investigator Elizabeth Royte investigates one of the biggest marketing tricks of this century and gives a sudden environmental alarm bell. She explores the red flags we must eventually deal with. Who owns our drinking water? What happens when a bottled-water factory holds your town’s source? Is the water that comes out of your tap wholly safe? What is really the environmental footprint of production, transporting and waste of a plastic water bottle?

Politicians from everywhere around the international community are acknowledging that they need to take responsibility – particularly when the institutions in which they collate are major consumers of bottled water. How often do we witness a politician at a conference drinking from a water bottle. Why can’t they can drink from a water glass in Parliament House.

Leslie Samuelrich of Corporate Accountability International, claimed “Cities and states are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on bottled water, and that’s not to mention what’s spent to deal with all the plastic bottles that are thrown out.”

In July 2009, the NSW rural town of Bundanoon became the first place of Australia to cease the retailing of bottled water. Around 60 townships in the States and a handful of towns in Canada and the UK have now ceased spending taxpayer money on bottled water.

It is certain that this problem will be on the agenda at World Water Week 2010 from September 5 to 11 in Stockholm, Sweden, the annual meeting for the planet’s most urgent water-related dilemmas.

Article written by Tracey Bailey, founder of Biome Eco Stores.