The Bottled Water Hall of Shame

Today is Blog Action Day on Water -- a time to bring attention to the fact that more than a billion people lack access to clean water. Over the course of my career as an activist, I've done quite a lot of campaigning on water. On access to it as a human right ...

Buckets set out to capture rainwater on a roof in the old city of Jerusalem.

On protecting it from industrial degradation ...

A tailings pond --waste water from processing synthetic crude oil-- in the Alberta tar sands.

And on the perverse pricing of bottled water.

The Bottled Water Hall of Shame.

I do this from the perspective of an ecumenical social justice agency, KAIROS. Once when I was interviewed on national radio about bottled water, I explained how before I saw the light, as it were, my blue box used to be filled with little clear bottles of water. But once I realized the dangerous impact --symbolic and real-- of bottled water, I turned back to the tap. At the end of the interview I was asked "What's in your blue box now?" Pause. "Wine bottles," I said. "Turning water into wine is a great religious tradition."

I do still have a few water bottles, a little collection on my office window that I call the Bottled Water Hall of Shame. One of them is from the Second Cup coffee chain, a fundraising initiative for the development agency PLAN. Another is the house brand ("Ethos Water") from Starbucks.


Both of these chains position their bottled water as an ethical and a charitable option. You buy a bottle of water and it helps dig a well in a Southern country where access to water is limited. I don’t blame people for choosing this option if they are buying bottled water. I don’t blame them for thinking that it’s a good idea to dig a well. I don’t even blame Starbucks or Second Cup for wanting to be responsible corporate citizens.

But I do take issue with purchasing bottled water when we don’t need to. One of the bottles is from the All-Africa Council of Churches' Desmond Tutu Ecumenical Centre in Nairobi, where it was the only way to ensure sufficient potable water for the thousands of people who arrived to participate in the World Social Forum in 2007.


When I was in the West Bank in 2005, that was the only form of water deemed safe to drink. When the Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan hosted a group of us last year, they gave us bottled water because they didn't want us drinking the same water they did, which they fear is polluted by the tar sands. In all of those cases, there's a structural problem we need to address.

Suncor tar sands plant on the banks of the Athabasca River.

I take even greater issue with the way that Second Cup and Starbucks believe we can ensure that everyone has enough clean, potable water for food, cooking, and sanitation. What they wish to ensure by charity is what the UN Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights recognized as a basic human right: sufficient clean, potable water for food, cooking, and sanitation. Canada has refused to recognize this right. (Oh, by the way, there is also a water bottle --"Earth Water"-- from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in my Hall of Shame.)


What’s wrong with their method? What’s wrong with digging wells? What’s wrong with bottled water?

Buying bottled water so that 10 or 20 cents can go towards a well undermines our understanding of water as a public trust and a human right.

It does this in a number of ways.

First, greed. If these corporations want to do good, they have a million other ways to do it rather than selling over-priced water. It’s called profit, which they already have in abundance. Surely they can donate some of that to reputable NGOs instead of enticing consumers who want to do something good to buy water and thereby further increase their profit margin.

Second, commodification and the public good. The very notion of buying bottled water when a safe and publicly funded utility provides you with an equally safe source of drinking water undermines the collective understanding of water as something which we all require for life and to which we are all entitled. Furthermore, every bottle of water we buy sends a message to our government that it’s okay they don’t invest in infrastructure in municipalities, rural communities, and Indigenous reserves. We don’t need public water; we can buy it from corporations. We can buy water; we don’t need you to recognize it as a right.

Third, charity. I work for the churches; clearly I am not opposed to charity. But I think that in and of itself it is no solution to any of the problems we face today. No matter how well-intentioned, charity is, at its root, someone with giving to someone without. But we all have the right to water. No one can give it to me, and I cannot give it to anyone. My own belief, as a person of faith, is these rights are a part of Creation. To accept the charity-based model of ensuring access to water undermines this. More importantly for the world beyond the Christian church, it undermines a profound principle that is inherent in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – that we all have a right to the basic elements of life, including water.

Fourth, justice. Donating money to dig wells does not get at the fundamental structural injustices that are conspiring to deny people access to water. In some communities, digging a well will work but in many others it will not. Let me relate a couple of stories.

In 2005 I traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. This is pretty parched land, and it is in the midst of a water war. The Separation Wall between Israel and the West Bank has cut many Palestinians off from their wells.


And the Palestinians have been under a strict series of military ordinances since 1967 that have prohibited them from digging more than a few wells: about 25 in the last 42 years. Their problem is a structural one, and no amount of nickels and dimes will give them access to the water they require. No amount of nickels and dimes will dig a well anywhere in a conflict zone where access to water is cut off.

That same year, I traveled around Canada with Elizabeth Eilor, an economist and activist with the African Women’s Economic Policy Network in Uganda. Here she is on the left with me and a colleague.

Elizabeth has written a study of the gender impacts of water privatization in Uganda. When Uganda was structurally adjusted as a condition of debt relief, many of its services, including water delivery, were privatized. In one village, the community standpipe where women used to go for clean water was padlocked. If you did not have the few pence required to purchase the water –and many didn’t– then you either walked to a nearby stream polluted with sewage, or you walked several hours to a clean stream. The first option meant risking disease. The second meant increased levels of domestic violence (because you were away too long), time stolen from other required work, or removing your children from school so they could gather water. Digging a community well here will not help, because the water service there is privatized as a condition of aid. There’s no room for community.

So what’s the alternative? What should the coffee companies be doing? Well, as a starter, if they really are bent on digging wells, then donate 10 or 20 cents from every cup of coffee or tea that they make with municipally-treated and publicly-owned water.

What about bottled water consumers? First, say no to bottled water and second, take a look at what charity can’t accomplish and what structural change can. Join movements for change. They can have an impact. As part of our 2005-2007 water campaign, more than 150 Canadian municipalities signed a "Water Declaration" recognizing water as a human right. The City of Toronto has banned the sale of bottled water in its buildings. Rural communities are challenging the right of water corporations to drain the natural springs in their areas. And in July, the UN General Assembly voted to recognize water as a human right.

Canada, of course, abstained from that vote too. Yet we continue to seek action from our government. We wait for a comprehensive water policy rooted in recognition of water as a human right and a public trust. This means halting Canada’s support of structural adjustment conditions like those in Uganda that deprive poor people of water. It means funding water delivery infrastructure in Canadian municipalities and Indigenous communities, so that they don’t have to resort to privatization. It means requiring corporations to meet rigorous environmental standards in Canada and abroad so that water is protected for future generations.

It’s a tall order. Grande perhaps, or Venti. And you won’t find it in any bottle at any coffee shop at any price.


The current KAIROS campaign on ensuring that Indigenous peoples have a say in deciding how their territories are developed, and the Polaris Institute's Inside the Bottle campaign are both ways that you can take a stand on water.

The Athabasca River flowing north from the tar sands towards Fort Chipewyan.

And so is just saying "No" to bottled water.

If you would like to read more great blogs on water, check out two of my friends' pages: artist and natural observer Vickie Henderson and general troublemaker Murr Brewster. Other blogs by people I don't know can be accessed on the Blog Action day website.