With desertification on the rise and weather patterns shifting, water rights are becoming one of the most pressing issues for the hydrological haves and have nots.  Privatization, over-use, and pollution are all facing off with community, campus and social justice organizations over who owns, and how they use, the lifeblood of human and animal life.  

Bottled water has become the symbol for pushing back against water privatization, embodying the economic, ecological, social and human health issues surrounding water rights. 

According to the Polaris institute, bottled water is the “end point of a supply chain that contains some of the biggest polluters on the planet. The two primary raw materials in polyethylene terphtalate (PET plastic, used is most single serve bottles) are terephthalic acid (PTA) and monoethylene glycol (MEG), toxic chemicals that are derived from crude oil. The extraction of these primary raw materials involves oil and petrochemical corporations such as British Petroleum, ExxonMobil and Shell.”  These same companies all have interests in the Athabasca tar sands, the largest industrial development on the planet. 

Bottled water companies also remove hundreds of thousands of liters of water each day, water that ends up in plastic bottles, shipped thousands of kilometers, and consumed in communities far from the original watersheds.  The Pacific Institute estimates that for every comercially viable bottle of water sold on shelves, another bottle is necessarily wasted in production.  This unequal equation is reducing watersheds around the world, a problem compounded by changes in the global hydrological cycle due to a shifting climate. 

The impacts are not simply bound to the environment, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, there have been 29 recalls of a total 49 bottled water products due to health concerns since 2000, of which 5 were publicly announced.  Glossy advertising campaigns are used to by the “Big 4” water bottlers, Coca Cola and PepsiCo join Nestlé and Groupe Danone, to sell a product that is, at the best of time, little more than recycled tap water – which is free. 

Thanks to the negligible fees, bottlers pay for water from groundwater, streams, aquifers and municipal sources, these corporations are making money hand over fist.  Bottled water sales have gotten so high, they now out-perform soft drinks and both Coke and Pepsi. 

In order to draw attention to the bottled water industry, Canada’s Polaris institute, along with over seventy organisations, institutions and municipalities, will mark tomorrow, March 11 2010, as the first annual Bottled Water Free Day.

Check out TapThirst, and the for people in Montreal, the upcoming Uncharted Waters conference (March 26-29) to get involved in fighting water privatization.