I cannot agree more with the comments that Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees gave in their book “Our Ecological Footprint.” These authors wrote that the environmental crisis is a human behavioral and social problem rather than an environmental and technical one. People strive to take possession of natural resources and to exploit the bounty of nature. The acceleration of resource consumption in order to support rapid economic growth in our society and rising material standards of the industrialized countries in the past decades have degraded the forest, soil, water and air on our planet. (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996)
Please let me tell you a story about “Dem Elch eine Gasmaske verkaufen[1].” It starts like this: There was a prominent salesman who could even sell a tooth brush to a dentist, bread to a baker and a television to a blind person. One day his friend said to him: “If you can sell a gas mask to a moose, you really are a prominent salesman.” He took the challenge and left for the North where herds of moose inhabit. The salesman met a moose in the forest and told it: “Hello Sir, you certainly need a gas mask.” The moose responded reluctantly: “What for? The air is so clean here.” Later on, the salesman set up a factory in the middle of the forest. Shortly after that, the moose went to the salesman and told him: “Now, I need a gas mask, please sell me one.” “See, I told you! You are lucky, I have a thousand in stock,” said the salesman proudly. Then asked the moose: “By the way, what do you produce in this factory?” “Gas masks, of course!” replied the salesman.
Does this story sound similar to the bottled water deception? Fresh air and fresh water are both natural resources for everyone. Who is that culprit who plunders our right to gain free access to natural resources? The international campaign for a human right to water has grown enormously over the past decade. This campaign has its roots in the arguments of anti-privatization campaigners, who have fought numerous campaigns to resist, and then to overturn water privatization projects around the world (Bakker, 2007). Unfortunately, giant international corporations continue to expand their lucrative business of selling bottled water.
Click to watch the video about The Story of Bottled Water.
Each year, the bottled water industry spends billions to create an illusion that bottled water is pure and clearer than tap water. It has been proved that such marketing is illusory. The Environment Working Group (EWG) conducted a water quality test for the 10 most popular bottled water brands in the US (e.g. Mountain View California, Oakland California, Silver Spring Maryland). The report revealed 38 chemical pollutants were found in those 10 brands of bottled water (Naidenko, Leiba, Sharp, & Houlihan, 2008).
When bottled water was first introduced, consumers thought it was a joke. Today, people are willing to pay 2000 times more for a bottled water than they pay for tap water (Natural society, 2018). Worldwide consumption of bottle water reached 288 billion liters in 2012 and was forecasted to reach 391 billion liters in 2017 (Statisitics, 2018). In Switzerland, the yearly consumption of bottled water increased to 977 million liters and equivalent to 115 liter per person (Le News, 2018).
Furthermore, another problem created by bottled water is that it destroys our planet. Plastic and bottled water has become a main culprit to undermine our quality of planet. Nature is suffering at the expense of the priority given to convenience. According to WWF every year about 1.5 million tons of plastic are used to manufacture bottles. Typical PET bottles are a major threat to the environment because they are made out of petroleum. Environmentalists have long denounced plastic as a long-lasting pollutant that does not fully biodegrade. Plastic can take up to 450 years to decompose (Le Guern, 2018), further releasing contaminates into the soil, water and air (PBS.org, 2005). Another problem with plastic water bottles is that many people do not actually recycle their bottles. In the US the recycle rate of plastic bottles was about 29.7% in 2016 (Recycle Today, 2017).
Who suffers from plastic pollution?
Do you know that all sea creatures, from the largest species to microscopic organisms, are ingesting seawater which has been instilled with toxic chemicals from plastic decomposition (Le Guern, 2018)? It is estimated between 5m and 13m tons of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Laville & Taylor, 2017).
What can we do to protect our planet?
Let’s stop creating any more plastic waste. One possible way is no more buying bottled water instead drink from tap water. Think about it, people live in Switzerland are so blessed. We can easily find clear drinking water from fountains located in public areas in every cities and villages. Why should you pay? Try to bring a bottle with us from home e.g. stainless steel or BPA-free plastic reusable. If we have to buy a drink in a store please pay attention to the recycle label if the bottles are made from recycled PET and ENSO which is degradable in a landfill (Horowitz, Frago, & Mu, 2018). Finally, don’t forget to put your emptied bottle in the recycle bin.
Bibliography
Bakker, K. (2007). Alter-globalization,Anti-privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South. Retrieved on October 20, 2018, from https://sites.ualberta.ca/~ksentes/commons%20versus%20commodity.pdf
Horowitz, N., Frago, J., & Mu, D. (2018, June). Waste Management, Volume 76, pp. 734-743. Retrieved on October 20,2018 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X18301090
Laville, S., & Taylor, M. (2017, June 28). The Guardian. Retrieved on 10 20, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change
Le Guern, C. (2018, March). Costal Care. Retrieved on October 19, 2018, from http://plastic-pollution.org/
Le News. (2018, October 18). Le News. Retrieved on October 19, 2018, from https://lenews.ch/2018/09/19/swiss-consumption-of-bottled-water-rises-significantly/
Naidenko, Leiba N, Sharp, Houlihan. (2008, October 15). Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands 38 Pollutants by Environmental Working Group. Retrieved on October 20, 2018, from https://www.ewg.org/book/export/html/27010
Natural society. (2018). The Bottled Water Industry Deception. Retrieved on October 19, 2018, from http://naturalsociety.com/the-bottled-water-deception/
PBS.org. (2005, April 28). Vogageof the Odyssey. Retrieved on October 19, 2018, from https://www.pbs.org/odyssey/odyssey/20050428_log_transcript.html
Recycle Today. (2017, November 7). Recycle Today. Retrieved on October 19, 2018 from http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/2016-plastic-bottle-recycling-study-apr-acc/
Statisitics. (2018). The Statistics Portal. Retrieved on October 19, 2018 from https://www.statista.com/statistics/387255/global-bottled-water-consumption/
Wackernagel , M., & Rees, W. (1996). In Our Ecological Footprint – Reducing human impact on the earth (p. 1 to 5). Canada: New Society Publishers.
Picture
Picture 1. https://besrefreshments.com/green-bay-northwest-wisconsin-consumers-prefer-bottled-water/
Picture 2. http://www.no-burn.org/the-story-of-bottled-water/
Picture 3. http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=1292
Picture 4. http://plastic-pollution.org/
Video
The story of bottled water https://www.google.ch/searchq=the+story+of+bottled+water&rlz=1C1EJFA_enCH719CH723&oq=The+story+of+bottled+water&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.10411j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Foot note
[1] Translate into English: “Sell a gas mask to the moose”
