Think Outside the Bottle - Challenge Corporate Control of Water!

CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY INTERNATIONAL’S
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOTTLE CAMPAIGN

Corporate Accountability International is a membership organization that wages campaigns to stop irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions. Founded in 1977 under the name “Infact,” we have succeeded in forcing major concessions from transnational corporations such as Nestlé, General Electric, and Phillip Morris/Altria. Building upon 30 years of successful grassroots organizing, we are campaigning to bring global attention to the life-threatening abuses of the water industry.

Bottled water corporations are changing the way that we all think about water. A handful of corporations have identified water as a commodity and are increasingly trying to take control of public water resources and systems. Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi are among those, and are undermining confidence in public water systems by making people think that the only place to get clean safe water is in from a bottle.

The more water becomes a high priced commodity – the “oil of the 21st century” – the more public water sources and universal access to water become threatened. For example, Coke’s Dasani and Pepsi’s Aquafina use tap water as their source, but sell it back to us at thousands of times the cost. Others like Nestlé, run roughshod over communities’ concerns and damage the environment when they extract water and build bottling plants to get local spring and ground water.

Access to water is in danger. One in six people on earth don’t have access to enough water. That’s more than one billion of us who don’t have enough water to drink, bathe and cook. As a society, we need to be asking ourselves who is providing our water – a basic human right? Will it be Coke, Pepsi and Nestlé – or will it be our own towns and governments that are controlled democratically?

We need to ensure that ALL people have equal access to clean public water and that our water systems are supported and well-maintained. As a step toward that, we are asking people across the country to Think Outside the Bottle and make a commitment to public tap water instead.

Do you care about your right to water, and the rights of those in other countries?

Join us for a kickoff meeting this Wednesday!