Thinking outside the bottle
the daily -- March 12, 2008
UW students are partnering with Corporate Accountability International (CAI) to think outside the bottle — bottled water, that is.
CAI’s campaign to promote the use of tap water included a taste test challenge last week.
“The group on campus is aligning for the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign, which wants people to use tap water over bottled water and to restore confidence in the public water,” said Mary Rafferty, the Seattle field organizer for CAI, an organization that campaigns against corporate abuse against consumers.
Students were blindfolded and asked to sample four different cups of water: Dasani, Arrowhead, Aquafina and the city’s tap water.
“This really shows that water is water and many of the people participating could not taste a difference,” Rafferty said.
The CAI has been conducting tap water challenges throughout the nation for six months as part of its campaign, which asks people to take a pledge of only drinking tap water in order to preserve precious resources.
A collective group of students, cities, national organizations and religious organization are participating in this effort.
“Students on campus are absolutely amazing and people have been nothing but receptive in this message,” Rafferty said.
The group’s next event is open to all students and is tonight at Café Allegro; the event will serve as a kick-off meeting for the rest of the campaign.
Up to 40 percent of bottled water comes from the same source as tap water and is then sold to the public at hundreds of times the cost, according to the CAI Web site.
The three leading bottled water companies — Pepsi’s Aquafina, Coca-Cola’s Dasani and Nestle’s Arrowhead — all use tap water, yet they make up more than half of the U.S. bottled water industry.
Up to 74 percent of Americans drink bottled water, and more than $100 billion is spent worldwide every year on bottled water. To produce these bottles, 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide is released, and enough fuel for 1 million cars for a year is required.
“This amount of oil is equivalent to a quarter of a liter of one bottle of water.” Rafferty said. “That’s huge.”
Sophomore Holly Rubert said she was surprised by the numbers.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “The fact that they are using so many resources that hurts the environment while taking advantage of the consumers is astounding. The mere fact that corporations can get away with that is unbelievable.”
CAI hopes to reach their goal of having 25,000 people participate in the Think Outside the Bottle Pledge.
In Seattle, the pledge goal is 1,200; more than 22,620 total people have pledged nationwide, including actor Martin Sheen.
“Mayor Nickels has been spearheading a lot of work for carbon emissions, and we want to show him that there is also support for [tap] water [efforts] … to restore confidence in the public water,” Rafferty said.
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