Put that bottle down... it's World Water Day!

by Katherine Dodds

Water has been an issue dear to my heart since we started the company 9 years ago. My mother always said, if you want to do one thing to decrease suffering in the world, make sure you give everyone, everywhere access to free, clean water.

Sadly, we've gone in the other direction.

We've polluted the last largest fresh water body on earth (The Great Lakes) and we are heading towards what many believe are the world water wars. And did you know that Nestle controls most of the world's bottled water?

Corporate Accountablility International (formerly INFACT, who brought us the Nestle boycott in years gone by)  has a new campaign urging folks to challenge Corporate control of water. They've also launched a new short film with Annie Leonard [1] (The Story Of Stuff). Check out their campaign!

Also in  the last year Mark Achbar has executive produced two films about water -- Waterlife [2], and Blue Gold [3]. My friend Liz Miller has done another one called The Water Front [4]. These are all worth checking out.

In Canada, The Council of Canadians has a campaign, Unbottle It, [5] and they list community actions across Canada, ideas of what you can do,  as well as urging action against Nestle's recent misleading ad. [6]

So, on World Water Day -- just walk over to your tap, pour a long tall glass of H2O and think about what's in it, where it came from, and how it got to you. Don't go with the flow... go to the source of the problem! After all -- you are mostly full of it. (Water that is!)

Comments