Friday, July 11, 2008

Think Outside The Bottle

I don't drink bottled water and neither should you. It is a waste of energy and precious resources that are quickly being used up. According to the Think Outside the Bottle website, 74% of Americans drink bottled water, and one in five drinks only bottled water. What is even worse is that each year more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter. Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil last year – enough fuel for more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year - and generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.

This website urges users to pledge to Think Outside The Bottle. This is the easiest thing you will do today. We are all in this together. Please do your part by not buying, consuming, and drinking bottled water. Pass this message along and encourage your friends and family to take the pledge. Mother Earth will love you for it.

I pledge to Think Outside the Bottle, which means:

Opting for public tap water over bottled water; and

Supporting the efforts of local officials who prioritize strong public water systems over bottled water profits.

Signed by:[Your name]


Because water is a human right and not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit;

Because bottled water corporations are changing the very way people think about water and undermining people's confidence in public water systems;

Because up to 40% of bottled water in the U.S. and Canada is sourced from municipal tap water;

Because some bottlers have run over communities' concerns and the environment when they extract water and build bottling plants to get local spring and ground water;

Because bottled water travels many miles from the source, results in the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels, and contributes to the billions of plastic bottles ending up in our landfills;

Because worldwide there is a need for investments in public water systems to ensure equal access to water, a key ingredient for prosperity and health for all people; and

Because solutions to ensuring water as a fundamental human right require people acting together and standing up for public water systems.

1 comment:

Tom said...

Its great to hear that you've joined the Think Outside the Bottle movement. I'm an organizer at Corporate Accountability International, and we love your enthusiasm. That level of excitement inspires our organization to keep doing what we do. Thanks again for your commitment, and for spreading the word.

-Tom