On Oct. 1, the Guelph Mercury released the article “City cancels film screening after complaint from Nestle Waters.”
Nestle’s presumption that they have the right to influence the City of Guelph’s decision in whether or not to screen the bottled water documentary Tapped is particularly audacious. The trend to ditch single use bottled water is clearly threatening to Nestle and has prompted John Challinor, director of corporate affairs of Nestle Waters Canada, to scour local newspapers for potential bottled water bans and any actions that potentially threaten their bottom line. Still Nestle is 42nd on the Global 500, a yearly list of the world’s largest corporations, with an annual revenue of $105 billion, $9 billion of which is from bottled water sales. With a looming global water crisis, we need to be looking critically at the social, environmental and climate impacts of single use bottled water. It is alarming that Nestle’s wealth and power has bought them the ability to stifle the free flow of information and critical thinking and democratic debate in a community.
UPDATE: This was printed as a letter to the editor in the Guelph Mercury on October 13, 2012.
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