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The Story of Bottled Water (2010)

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    This is a story about a world obsessed with stuff.
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    It's a story about a system in crisis.
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    We're trashing the planet.
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    We're trashing each other.
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    And we're not even having fun.
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    The good thing is that
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    when we start to understand the system,
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    we start to see lots of places to step in
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    and turn these problems into solutions.
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    One of the problems with trying to use less stuff
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    is that sometimes we feel like we really need it.
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    What if you live in a city like, say, Cleveland
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    and you want a glass of water?
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    Are you going to take your chances and
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    get it from the city tap?
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    Or should you reach for a bottle of water
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    that comes from the pristine rainforests of… Fiji?
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    Well, Fiji brand water
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    thought the answer to this question was obvious.
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    So they built a whole ad campaign around it.
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    It turned out to be one of the dumbest moves
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    in advertising history.
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    You see, the city of Cleveland
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    didn’t like being the butt of Fiji’s jokes,
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    so they did some tests and guess what?
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    These tests showed
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    a glass of Fiji water is lower quality,
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    it loses taste tests against Cleveland tap
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    and costs thousands of times more.
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    This story is typical of what happens
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    when you test bottled water against tap water.
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    Is it cleaner?
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    Sometimes, sometimes not.
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    In many ways,
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    bottled water is less regulated than tap.
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    Is it tastier?
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    In taste tests across the country,
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    people consistently choose tap over bottled water.
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    These bottled water companies say
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    they're just meeting consumer demand.
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    But who would demand a less sustainable,
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    less tasty, way more expensive product, especially
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    one you can get for almost free in your kitchen?
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    Bottled water costs
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    about 2000 times more than tap water.
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    Can you imagine paying 2000 times
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    the price of anything else?
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    How about a $10,000 sandwich?
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    Yet people in the US buy
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    more than half a billion bottles of water every week.
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    That is enough to circle the globe more than 5 times.
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    How did this come to be?
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    Well, it all goes back to how our materials economy works
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    and one of its key drivers which is known as
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    manufactured demand.
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    If companies want to keep growing,
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    they have to keep selling more and more stuff.
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    In the 1970s giant soft drink companies got worried
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    as they saw their growth projections starting to level off.
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    There’s only so much soda a person can drink.
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    Plus it wouldn’t be long before people began realizing
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    that soda is not that healthy and turned back to
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    "gasp", drinking tap water.
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    Well, the companies
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    found their next big idea in a silly designer product
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    that most people laughed off as a passing yuppie fad.
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    "Water is free", people said back then,
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    "what will they sell us next, air?"
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    So how do you get people to buy this fringe product?
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    Simple. You manufacture demand.
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    How do you do that?
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    Well, imagine
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    you're in charge of a bottled water company.
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    Since people aren’t lining up to trade
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    their hard-earned money
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    for your unnecessary product,
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    you make them feel scared
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    and insecure if they don’t have it.
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    And that’s exactly what the bottled water industry did.
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    One of their first marketing tactics was
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    to scare people about tap water,
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    with ads like Fiji’s Cleveland campaign.
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    “When we’re done,” one top water executive said.
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    “tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes.”
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    Next, you hide the reality of your product
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    behind images of pure fantasy.
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    Have you ever noticed
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    how bottled water tries to seduce us with
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    pictures of mountain streams and pristine nature?
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    But guess where a third of all bottled water in the US
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    actually comes from?
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    The tap!
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    Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani are
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    two of the many brands
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    that are really filtered tap water.
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    But the pristine nature lie goes much deeper.
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    In a recent full page ad, Nestlé said:
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    “bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.”
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    What?!
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    They are trashing the environment
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    all along the product’s life cycle.
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    Exactly how is that environmentally responsible?
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    The problems start here
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    with extraction and production
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    where oil is used to make water bottles.
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    Each year,
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    making the plastic water bottles used in the US
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    takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars.
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    All that energy spent to make the bottle
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    even more to ship it around the planet
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    and then we drink it in about 2 minutes?
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    That brings us to the big problem
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    at the other end of the life cycle.
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    Disposal.
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    What happens to all these bottles when we’re done?
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    Eighty percent end up in landfills,
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    where they will sit for thousands of years,
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    or in incinerators, where they are burned,
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    releasing toxic pollution.
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    The rest gets collected for recycling.
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    I was curious about where
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    the plastic bottles that I put in the recycling bins go.
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    I found out that shiploads were being sent to India.
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    So, I went there.
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    I will never forget riding over a hill outside Madras
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    where I came face to face
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    with a mountain of plastic bottles from California.
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    Now, real recycling
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    would turn these bottles back into bottles.
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    But that wasn’t what was happening here.
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    Instead these bottles were slated to be downcycled,
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    which means turning them into lower quality products
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    that would just be chucked later.
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    The parts that couldn’t be downcycled
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    were thrown away there,
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    shipped all the way to India
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    just to be dumped in someone else’s backyard.
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    If bottled water companies
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    want to use mountains on their labels,
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    it would be more accurate to show
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    one of these mountains of plastic waste.
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    Scaring us, seducing us, and misleading us
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    these strategies are
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    all core parts of manufacturing demand.
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    Once they have manufactured all this demand,
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    creating a new multibillion dollar market,
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    they defend it by beating out the competition.
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    But in this case, the competition is
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    our basic human right to clean, safe drinking water.
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    Pepsi’s Vice Chairman publicly said
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    “The biggest enemy is tap water!”
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    They want us to think it’s dirty
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    and bottled water is the best alternative.
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    In many places, public water is polluted
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    thanks to polluting industries
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    like the plastic bottle industry.
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    And these bottled water guys are
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    all too happy to offer their expensive solutions,
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    which keep us hooked on their products.
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    It is time we took back the tap.
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    That starts with making a personal commitment
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    to not buy or drink bottled water
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    unless the water in your community is truly unhealthy.
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    Yes, it takes a bit of foresight
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    to grab a reusable bottle on the way out,
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    but I think we can handle it.
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    Then take the next step
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    join a campaign that’s working for real solutions,
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    like demanding investment in clean tap water for all.
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    In the US, tap water is underfunded by $24 billion
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    partly because people believe
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    drinking water only comes from a bottle!
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    Around the world,
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    a billion people don’t have access to clean water
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    right now.
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    Yet cities all over are spending millions of dollars
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    to deal with all the plastic bottles we throw out.
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    What if that money was spent
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    improving our water systems
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    or better yet, preventing pollution to begin with?
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    There are many more things we can do
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    to solve this problem.
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    Lobby your city officials
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    to bring back drinking fountains.
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    Work to ban the purchase of bottled water
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    by your school, your organization or entire city.
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    This is a huge opportunity for millions of people
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    to wake up and protect our wallets,
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    our health and the planet.
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    The good news is: it’s already started.
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    Bottled water sales have begun to drop while
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    business is booming for safe refillable water bottles.
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    Yay!
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    Restaurants are proudly serving “tap”
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    and people are choosing to pocket
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    the hundreds or thousands of dollars
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    they would otherwise be wasting on bottled water.
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    Carrying bottled water is on its way to being
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    as cool as smoking while pregnant.
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    We know better now.
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    The bottled water industry is getting worried
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    because the jig is up.
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    We are not buying into
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    their manufactured demand anymore.
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    We will choose our own demands, thank you very much,
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    and we’re demanding clean safe water for all.
Title:
The Story of Bottled Water (2010)
Video Language:
English
Team:
PACE
Duration:
08:04
sherall.freeman edited English subtitles for The Story of Bottled Water (2010)
amymhenson edited English subtitles for The Story of Bottled Water (2010)
somaria added a translation

English subtitles

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