A recent “grassroots” campaign, funded by The International Bottled Water Association, has popped up on the internet charging consumers to fight for their rights to drink, carry and purchase bottled water anytime, anywhere. With a website, YouTube channel, Twitter feed and Facebook page they present themselves as concerned citizens and good, honest bottled water enthusiasts.

This is yet another example of large corporations and trade groups attempting to influence public policy and opinion by sponsoring “grassroots” movements to fight for their agenda.

Check out this awkward spot produced by the group:

Brian Merchant notes: “But the strangest thing about this particular “grassroots” movement to me is just how out of touch and overextended it is — it seems like a pretty big stretch for the industry to assume it can make people think they’re fighting to defend their freedom of choice by asking their congressman to protect bottled water. I can’t imagine even the most diehard libertarian getting fired up over their right to drink bottled water.

Also interesting is the claim employed here, that we’ve grown well-accustomed to hearing — that moving to limit wasteful consumption or institute environmental protections amount to assaults on American freedoms. Which is more often than not, ridiculous. Bottled water, for instance, is wasteful, pointless, and requires a ton of petroleum to manufacture and recycle. Americans have the option to fill their reusable bottles with perfectly good tap water, at 1% of the cost. That’s what I call freedom.

[via TreeHugger]

Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, was on GMA today to talk about how the bottled water industry is a sham. It’s a short video but definitely hits on all the good points and it’s great to get that type of coverage and exposure. Check out the video here: GMA Bottled & Sold

Story of Stuff has put together a great video detailing the story of bottle water. The video is a quick view while being both informative and entertaining.

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0

The video below shows a computer animation comparing the US rate of plastic water bottle recycling (approx. 100 bottles/second) to the non-recycled rate (approx. 845 bottles/second; see image) for 2005.

This computer animation was made to raise awareness about bottled water, and its surprisingly poor recycling rates. Since its recent popularization, bottled water (in all its flavors) has become ironically one of the most consumed, yet least recycled beverages. For example, it is estimated that in 2005 alone approximately 30 billion plastic water bottles were purchased in the US, with only about 12% recycled (in part due to out-dated deposit laws), and the remaining 25 billion bottles landfilled, littered or incinerated.

From MSNBC:

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