Info-graphic circling Web takes on bottled water

Last year the Colorado Independent reported that Nestle made a deal with Chaffee County to pump millions of gallons of water from springs near the Arkansas River, cart it 6,000 miles a day on the road between Johnson Village and Denver, pour it into bottles and sell it as Arrowhead Springs mineral water. That’s the same water that comes out of taps in municipalities across the state, water Coloradans can drink for a fraction of the price Nestle charges. The Chaffee County case was just one flash point in the larger battle over bottled water. Today, the group Online Education is sending around an info-graphic on bottled water prodding Americans to just think about what they’re doing, at least a little bit, next time they go to the gym or the corner store or Costco or anywhere bottled water winks at you alluringly from a shelf.

In making the Chaffee County deal, Nestle promised to bring jobs, mostly truck driving jobs. A lot of people thought ten or so truck driving jobs was a small price to ask for the valuable water and for the county residents to accept construction of Nestle infrastructure in the area and to risk the Chaffee wetlands and to generally endorse an unnecessary and polluting industry where the profits like the water flow away from the people in Chaffee County.

The text that’s scrunched up at the top of the image reads:

“While a large portion of the world desperately seeks clean drinking water, the United States and other countries spend billions on bottled water when perfectly clean drinking water is readily available. Not only are we needlessly spending money on water with lower standards than those of tap water, we are also filling our landfills with billions of pounds of oil based plastics that take 1000s of years to degrade.”

The Facts About Bottled Water

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