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Mayors Move to Halt City Spending on Bottled Water For Immediate Release: Contact: MIAMI – At the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, the country’s leading mayors are sponsoring a resolution (Resolution 70) that encourages cities nationwide to stop spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water. Its first vote will be in the Environment Committee this Saturday. Despite broad support from prominent restaurants and a range of businesses and public interest organizations nationwide, the bottled water industry has hired a team of lobbyists to defeat the resolution. Though tap water is far more regulated, bottled water marketing has convinced one in five Americans that the only place to get water is from a bottle. The industry appears intent on keeping it that way. “The truth is, our public water systems are among the best in the world and demand significant and ongoing investment,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a sponsor of Resolution 70. “Cities are sending the wrong message about the quality of public water when we spend taxpayer dollars on water in disposable containers from a private corporation.” The resolution comes on the heels of actions by cities, counties and states nationwide to cancel bottled water contracts out of concern for the budgetary, environmental and social impact of such purchases. It also follows the release of a study commissioned at last year’s U.S. Conference of Mayors that found the vast majority of plastic water bottles were not being recycled and that cities were picking up the tab for disposing the billions of pounds in waste. “It’s just plain common sense for cities to stop padding the bottled water industry’s bottom line at taxpayer expense,” said Gigi Kellett, national director of the Think Outside the Bottle campaign. “This resolution will send the strong message that opting for tap over bottled water is what’s best for our environment, our pocketbooks and our long-term, equitable access to this most essential resource.” For months, Think Outside the Bottle has worked with mayors, faith groups, and businesses to build support for the resolution and related city actions. Bottled water giants Coke (Dasani), Nestlé (Poland Spring) and Pepsi (Aquafina) have also been busy, flying executives to cities large and small that are cancelling bottled water contracts. Though these corporations tell mayors that, “they support public water systems,” and that their marketing “does not disparage tap water,” the record tells another story. Prior even to launching its Dasani bottled water brand, Coke launched an H20NO campaign with Olive Garden to train waiters to steer patrons away from the tap and to Coke products. After the campaign’s early success, Coke announced, “The Olive Garden Targets Tap Water & WINS” on its website. In 2000, the CEO of Quaker Oats (which was soon to merge with PepsiCo) told a reporter that, “[t]he biggest enemy is tap water.” Susan D. Wellington, vice president of marketing for Pepsi-owned Gatorade once told a group of New York analysts that, “[w]hen we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes.” The trade associations representing Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi are even forwarding an alternate resolution (Resolution 71) aimed at compromising Newsom’s proposal. But with support from the mayors of New York City, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami, Philadelphia and other major cities, its supporters are confident of its passage. If the resolution passes Saturday, the resolution will then be voted on by the full Conference before Tuesday. # # # Corporate Accountability International, formerly Infact, is a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns challenging irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. For over 25 years, we've forced corporations -- like Nestlé, General Electric and Philip Morris/Altria -- to stop abusive actions. For more information visit www.stopcorporateabuse.org. For more information on Think Outside the Bottle visit www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org
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