The Story of Bottled Water is a short film by Anne Leonard that she released Thursday, which was World Water Day. Leonard, with the help of The Story of Bottled Water, is showing people how corporations are manipulating Americans to spend extra cash on half a billion bottles of water every week though just about every single person in this country can get it for free. “Purified” bottled water has become a $ 5 billion-a-year industry in the U.S. and ironically threatens public health and the environment.
World Water Day 2010
According to an article on HuffingtonPost.com, Anne Leonard said she chose World Water Day to release The Story of Bottled Water because it is:
“a good day to pause and consider the insanity of a global economy where 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water while other people spend billions on a bottled product that’s no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.”
Leonard, in The Story of Bottled Water, compares spending money on bottle water to buying a shrink-wrapped sandwich made by unknown hands costing $ 10,000. She points the finger at multi-billion marketing campaigns commissioned by industrial giants like Pepsi and Coca Cola and Nestle to make Americans afraid to drink tap water.
Toxic chemicals in bottled water
Although people may believe that they are drinking purified water, The Story of Bottled Water points out that it is often times no safer than tap water. It can also be less safe. Toxic chemicals from the plastic in the bottle can leach into the water inside.
Water bottles, according to a report on mindfully.org, are made from a variety of plastics, including Bisphenol-A (BPA), a very toxic chemical that leaches into the water in the bottles to some degree. It turns out that Bisphenal-A is a hormone disruptor that mimics estrogen and is linked to early onset puberty, obesity, declining sperm counts along with breast and prostate cancer. In Los Angeles, a billion-dollar class action suit was filed in March 2007 against five leading manufacturers of baby bottles containing Bisphenal-A.
Filter water at home
Leonard reveals that bottled water costs up to 2,000 times more than tap water, yet nearly 50 percent of bottled water is simply filtered tap water. People can filter their own water at home with products that cost anywhere from $ 15 to $ 120. Many other facts about bottled water that Leonard calls “inconvenient” truths are listed in The Story of Bottled Water:
- Bottled water is subject to fewer health regulations than tap water.
- Municipalities often need money loans to cover more than the $70 million it costs to landfill water bottles alone each year, according to Corporate Accountability International.
- Making the plastic water bottles used in the U.S. takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars, not including the fuel required to transport the bottles from the factory.
Use metal to bottle water
The Story of Bottled Water, however, does see a bright side to its argument.
Leonard points out that few people are spending money now on bottled water, as numbers are showing a slight decline in sales for the first time ever in 2009. More consumers choose to filter water at home, pass on bottled water at the store and carry reusable metal water bottles. Steel or aluminum water bottles cost anywhere from $ 5.95 to $ 19.95. Definitely out beats a $ 10,000 sandwich.
Tags: bottled water, fillter water at home, story of bottled water, world water day