Bottled
Water: Fact or Fool's Gold?
Ottawa, January 31st 2005 -
North Americans are consuming more bottled
water than coffee, tea, apple
juice, or even milk. But are they being duped by
misleading promises that
bottled water is healthier, purer, and fresher
than tap water? A new
book published by the Polaris Institute is clear on that
question.
Bottled water is indeed the
"fool's gold" of the beverage industry, as
they enjoy a superstar growth
market with consumers paying up to 10,000 times
more for than tap water.
Despite the fact that in some cases that is
exactly where the bottled
water comes from.
The Polaris Institute has
released its new book, Inside the Bottle: An
Exposé of the Bottled
Water Industry that exposes the deceptive practices
of four big companies that
dominate the bottled water industry: Nestle,
PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and
Danone.
Tony Clarke, author of the
book, and Director of the Institute says "we
produced this book to expose
ten major concerns with the industry ranging
from price gouging, massive
water takings, environmental disregard,
disingenuous marketing, to
securing exclusivity contracts in schools and
in government building and
also to show how the industry is contributing to
the privatization of our
public water utilities."
More and more people are
turning to bottled water for their daily
hydration needs in the belief
that it is safer than tap water, but studies have
shown that the popular brands
come pre-packaged with bacterial contaminants such as
E Coli and arsenic and in some cases have carcinogens added during the 'treatment
processes'
Clarke adds 'Inside the
Bottle': goes further in its examination of the
industry - presenting the
location of the Big 4 corporation's main
bottling plants in Canada and
the US and provides communities with tools on how to challenge
the industry and protect their water rights,
TONY CLARKE is the founder
and director of the Polaris Institute. He is
also the author and co-author
of nine critically acclaimed books including Blue
Gold: The Battle Against the
Corporate Theft of the World's Water [with
Maude Barlow] which has been
translated into 12 languages and published in
40countries.
The POLARIS INSTITUTE
develops tools for research, education and action to
enable citizens' groups to
challenge the power wielded by corporations in
public policy making and to
bring about democratic social change.
Contact Information:
Polaris Institute
312 Cooper Street
Ottawa, ON
K2P 0G7
Tel: (613) 237-1717
Fax: (613) 237-3359
insidethebottle@polarisinstitute.org
