Richard Girard, Polaris Institute, June 8, 2009 - Recent industry analysis shows that countries in the Global South have the best potential for future growth in bottled water sales. Market reports predict that over the next four years sales of bottle water will grow most quickly in Asia and Latin America due to 'the poor quality of potable water' in many countries. Africa is also highlighted as a having strong potential for bottled water sales due to the ‘poor quality of potable water'. In addition to limited access to clean tap water, reports mention the rising number of people with disposable incomes as a driver for growth in the industry.

This is all very positive for bottled water companies, but signals a wrong turn in the struggle to bring publicly managed municipal water service to communities and will have severe impacts on how populations view the delivery of this basic human right.

This is a message from our friends in Ghana who are struggling against the poor water services provided by a Dutch/South African multinational water services company:

Water services delivered to the Ghanaian public must be among the worst in the world. Under Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL), the private company that is being paid millions of dollars of our public resources to ‘manage’ the water service, things are getting worse. In addition to unbelievable scandal of millions of hard currency paid to these most undeserving ‘foreign management experts’, ordinary people’s water charges are going up all the time – water prices for consumers have gone up a MINIMUM of 67% since AVRL took over in 2006. We do not deserve this. AVRL MUST GO NOW!

Click here to read the rest of the message

Waterlife is a new National Film Board documentary about the Great Lakes from Director Kevin McMahon. Please visit the film's excellent website: waterlife.nfb.ca

Here is a description of the film from the 2009 Hot Docs website:

For Immediate Release

OTTAWA/ June 1, 2009 – On May 28, 2009 the Central Okanagan Regional District Board became the 50th municipality (and the 33rd in 2009) to implement municipal restrictions on bottled water in Canada.

“From Toronto to Vancouver, in big cities and rural towns, municipalities are taking out bottled water and re-investing in water fountains,” says Joe Cressy, Campaigns Coordinator of the Polaris Institute.

In March 2009 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) passed a resolution urging “all municipalities to phase out the sale and purchase of bottled water at their own facilities”.

“Bottled water is a redundant product. It is more expensive than gasoline, 2000 times more energy intensive than tap water, and not adequately regulated,” explained Tony Clarke, author of Inside the Bottle.

Bottled Water Backlash:
-50 municipalities from 8 provinces and 1 territory have restrictions on bottled water

Terry Macalister May 24, 2009, The Guardian - A vital meeting in Copenhagen this weekend that will help shape the agenda for the most important climate change talks since the Kyoto protocol has been hijacked by some of the biggest polluters in the world, critics claimed today.

Among those attending the World ­Business Summit on Climate Change is Shell, which has just been named by environmentalists on the basis of new research as "the most carbon-intensive oil company in the world".

There is concern that the big energy companies will be pushing carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way of keeping the oil-based economy running.

On Tuesday May 5, Canadian Senator, Grant Mitchell (Liberal) launched an inquiry into the provision of bottled water in Federal Facilities. To launch the inquiry he delivered the following 15 minute speech on the subject:

Honourable senators, I rise to draw the attention of honourable senators to an environmental initiative that would be relatively easy to implement and would save the federal government a significant amount of money, thereby saving taxpayers a significant amount of money.

Sewell Chan, New York Times, May 5, 2009 - The state will no longer purchase single serve water bottles and larger, cooler-sized water bottles for state agencies.

Citing both financial and environmental reasons, Gov. David A. Paterson signed an executive order on Tuesday directing state agencies to phase out the purchase and use of bottled water at government workplaces.

The order will gradually terminate the use of state money for the purchase of single-serve water bottles and larger, cooler-sized water bottles. Each executive agency will have to provide alternative water sources, like ordinary tap water fountains and dispensers.

Linda Diebel, Toronto Star, May 01, 2009 – Sewage-filled lagoons at a pig farm in eastern Mexico – a product of the North American free trade deal – are suspected of creating ground zero conditions for swine flu in this country.

Environmentalists argue lax regulations in the factory farming that boomed in Mexico right after the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the U.S. are making people sick – and not just with swine flu.

"You might call this the `NAFTA flu,'" said Rick Arnold, co-ordinator of Common Frontiers, a Canadian coalition focusing on Latin America and issues of economic integration.

He argues multinationals are getting away with dire conditions not allowed north of the border.

Environmental groups three years ago began protesting against operations at the Carroll Farms in Veracruz, jointly operated by U.S. pork giant Smithfield Farms.

Why is the Federal Government spending as much as $7.2 million on bottled water?

For Immediate Release

HALIFAX/OTTAWA, April 29, 2009 – Findings released today by the Polaris Institute and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Nova Scotia, have exposed the Government of Canada’s practice of purchasing millions of dollars of bottled water.

The report, entitled Bottled Watergate: Why is the Federal Government spending millions of tax dollars on bottled water?, draws attention to our federal government’s growing dependence on bottled water. Findings include:

-Since April 2006, the Government of Canada has spent upwards of $7,296,738 of public money on 131 separate contracts to purchase bottled water.
-7 Federal Departments in 8 provinces are involved in the purchasing of bottled water contracts.

Corporate Accountability International Press Release, April 22, 2009, ATLANTA – This Earth Day, Coke is using its annual shareholders’ meeting to spin the corporation’s image green. However, the forum is a reminder of the gulf between Coke’s rhetoric and its action.

“In the last year, Coke split its time – opposing progress on sustainability on the one hand and advertising its social responsibility on the other,” said Gigi Kellett, national spokesperson for the Think Outside the Bottle campaign. “Well, that’s leaving a lot of people asking, ‘what is the real thing, really?’”

Kellett’s organization, Corporate Accountability International, delivered 6,000 comments calling on Coke to dispense with its high-priced PR and answer the popular demand that it label the source of its Dasani bottled water, provide better information on its quality, and stop threatening local control of water when operating bottling plants.

Marcus Leroux and Elizabeth Judge, The Times, April 23, 2009 - For some it was pure, bottled sophistication; for others, money for old rope, the epitome of the disposable, consumer society that took hold in the 1980s. Either way, mineral water was yesterday confirmed as a casualty of the credit crunch when Nestlé said that sales of the bottled drink were plunging.

Nestlé, whose brands include Perrier and S. Pellegrino, the “champagne of waters”, is the world's biggest food company and the largest bottled water producer. Sales of its water declined by 4.1 per cent in the first three months of this year, Western Europe being particularly badly hit. There was a fall of 9 per cent in the British market last year.

Campaign to Stop Killer Coke Press Release, Monday, April 20, 2009 - The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will begin protest activities around Coca-Cola’s annual shareholders meeting beginning with a mobile billboard truck, which will be traveling throughout the Atlanta, Georgia, area beginning April 21 for five days, highlighting Coke’s labor, human rights and environmental abuses.

Two billboards, which are 10’ x 23’ and one which is 5’ x 3’, illustrate the abuses and promote the www.KillerCoke.org website. One large billboard depicts a Killer-Cola can and states “Unthinkable! Undrinkable! Murders in Colombia, Child Labor in El Salvador, Stealing and Polluting Water in India, El Salvador and Mexico.”

The second large billboard depicts a vending machine with the words “Killer-Cola: The Drink that Represses!” and satirizes Coke’s Coca-Cola Zero ad campaign by stating “Don’t Drink Killer Coke Zero: Zero Ethics! Zero Justice! Zero Health!”