Can you cut 1 Tonne of carbon pollution out of your life?
Take the challengeSo, Nestle won't stop selling bottled water in California, even though the state is under severe drought and it is only getting worse due to climate change effects. Nestle's CEO said he would not stop bottling water at the company's California plant, and that if he could he would actually bottle more water!
But as hard as this is to say, the Nestle CEO does make a good point during a radio interview when he states "It's driven by consumer demand, it's driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate."
The message I am receiving from this is that we can't rely on big corporations to change unless the demand changes. Big corporations want to make money, and unless the consumers shift their demand to a more sustainable one and boycott those brands that do not abide, then nothing will change.
This caused many people to tweet about all the bottled water brands to boycott. So why not boycott bottled water in general? According to Gizmodo, The bottled water industry is one of the fastest-growing on the planet. Last year it made $100 billion, an amount that is expected to double within five years.
Why should you boycott bottled water?
Let's think about the completely ridiculous notion that you should pay a lot of money for something that is a basic human right. We get the gist of water right... it keeps us alive! So something that is keeping us alive is bottled and sold to you for an expensive amount of money.
And in a place like California, or Australia where you can safely drink tap water, why would you buy bottled water?
Australians have been estimated to spend $385 million each year on bottled water, even though we have some of the world's best quality and very inexpensive tap water. It can be 2500-times more expensive to drink locally-bottled water compared with the same volume of tap water, and is often considerably more expensive than petrol. Expensive imported bottled water can get up to 7500-times more expensive, which makes chilled tap water look like a great deal!
Imagine if their were bubblers all around the city. Or imagine if establishments everywhere refused to sell bottled water and simply gave you tap water for free.
If we stick to tap water where it is safe, then places where it is unsafe to drink tap water, which is eleven percent of the earth's population, can be distributed clean water not wasted on places that don't need it.
Bottled water is a complete waste of the limited water we have left on this earth.
There's also a substantial CO2 pollution factor from making plastic bottles (from oil), filling them and transporting them around the country and the world. Big corporate companies need to be sent a message, and consumers must not demand bottled water anymore!
READ MORE: It doesn't make sense to buy bottled water [VIDEO]
What you can do
Say 'NO' to wasteful packaging, plastic bags and bottled water
Reject or cut back on these bad-for-the-environment items: over-packaged products, non-recyclable packaging, plastic bags and bottled water when tap water is available.
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