Caitlin Corner-Dolloff wants you to think outside the bottle, the water bottle, specifically those plastic ones.  Corner-Dolloff has brought the global fight against corporate water privatization to Connecticut.  She is the Field Organizer for Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a 30+ year old non-profit dedicated to fighting corporate abuse.

CAI’s latest campaign is to get more people to stop buying bottled water, which fuels the draining of aquifers in such places as India, where water resources are more scarce and in high demand.  The bottled water market facilitates the privatization of water worldwide by such multinational corporations as Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle (based here in CT, by the way).

But the ills of bottled water don’t stop there.   Bottled water is often unregulated, which means unlike tap water, contamination does not have to be reported to the general public.  Plastic bottles require oil to manufacture.  In fact, if you were to put the amount of oil needed to produce one bottle into that bottle, it would be fill a quarter of the volume.  Plus, only about 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled, with the other 80% finding themselves in landfills and incinerators (billions of bottles each year).  Add to that the cost and resources for transporting the bottles.

In addition to the environmental impact, making water a commodity has altered people’s perceptions of water.  One in five people drink bottled water exclusively because they are convinced it’s the only way to get clean water.  This Environmental Working Group study (“10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants”) suggests otherwise (Be sure to click on the Test Results section for startling specifics).  It found such contaminants as fertilizer residue, pain medication, disinfection byproducts, and even carcinogens.

Despite bottles laden with images of mountaintops and springs, 40% of bottled water comes straight from taps.   And, it’s sold back to consumers at a rate of anywhere from 100 to almost 2000 times the cost.  CAI won a fight against Aquafina which caused it to disclose its source (the tap), but there is no regulation that requires companies to do so.

Corner-Dolloff has already drummed up some political support in central Connecticut.  State Representative Beth Bye will bring the issue to the General Assembly and West Hartford mayor Scott Slifka has signed the Think Outside the Bottle Pledge.

But her sights are set higher: Governor Rell.  Corner-Dolloff sees the economic hardships of the state as an opportunity.  The state of Connecticut and many of its municipalities could save a lot of money by eliminating water coolers and bottled water at events.  She also finds it ironic that government officials who are charged with overseeing public water supplies often fail to use those very same systems.  Instead of spending money importing water at an exorbitant cost, Corner-Dolloff says, why not allocate some of that money to maintain and upgrade public water systems to ensure that water is as clean and accessible as it can be?

ThinkOutsideTheBottle.org has a ready-made letter to Governor Rell for concerned citizens to sign, found here: http://tinyurl.com/rellwaterletter.   The letter will be delivered to the governor on Wednesday February 11 at 11AM in the Legislative Office Building, room 2A.   Corner-Dolloff can be reached via email at: thinkoutsidethebottlect@gmail.com or by phone at (860) 231-9839.

(image credit: Trinitas Imaging – http://flickr.com/photos/uditk/1590855800/)