Should Water be Allowed to be Managed as a Profit-Driven Commodity?
Beyond the issues of your health and the environment, which I’ll discuss in a moment, bottled water represents a novel form of privatization, in which private corporations have succeeded at making water a commodity.
The film compares the cost of drinking water to gasoline, stating that as the cost of water has surpassed the cost of gas, it’s becoming evident that drinking water is the next Empire… Already, the World Bank has estimated the value of the world water market at $800 billion per year.
In communities around the United States, people are now gathering together to protect their local water supplies from being sold by private corporations.
Changes in global climate have caused water supplies to dwindle in certain areas, and the film includes a segment highlighting the irony many of these communities now face. For example, in 2007, Raleigh, North Carolina faced a terrible drought. Yet the Pepsi plant continued their water bottling plant operations even at the height of the drought. Pepsi Company used an estimated 400,000 gallons of municipal water a day, which they bottled and sold back to the community right as it was running out of water… It would seem obvious that water supplies should be reserved for the local communities, but as stated in the film, when private corporations control the water supply, you end up with “a collision in moral values.”
NSA Water Filters