Student Action

Canada: Bottled water and water privatization: the ruse and the resistance

Our Schools Our Selves.
By Andrea Harden and Karl Flecker -

Picture this.

You are standing in a pristine natural surrounding – lush green vegetation, vibrantly coloured wild flowers, birds are singing in harmony. Nearby, a babbling brook unspoiled and safe for drinking.

Now picture yourself paying $1.50 for this refreshing and pristine water packaged in a convenient plastic bottle. This is the image that the bottled water industry is conveying in expensive advertising campaigns, and we’re buying it. Today close to one-fifth of the population in Canada relies exclusively on bottled water for their daily hydration. Bottled water is now outpacing the consumption of coffee, tea, apple juice and milk in Canada. Strange to consider that just ten years ago most people took their drinking water directly from the tap!

So why has bottled water become such a popular fad? Is it truly healthy, safe and convenient? These are the questions that a growing number of student, environmental, consumer, municipalities, and faith-based groups are asking. What is really ‘inside the bottle’?

The Big 4 bottled water corporate players are recognizable corporations – Nestle, Coca-Cola Danone and Pepsi. These corporations face a unique marketing challenge. Unlike other industries that transform valuable resources like timber, minerals, oil, and gas into new products, bottled water is simply water transformed into water.

Slick marketing promotes bottled water as healthy safe and convenient. Consider what Jeff Caso, a Nestle executive has to say about their bottled water products; “We sell water, so we have to be clever.” The marketing of water both implicitly and explicitly as superior to the alternative (tap water) has been key to the promotion of this image. The following quote from an industry website, bottledwaterweb.com, aptly sums up this process: “An unfortunate consequence of learning about the many drawbacks and dangers of tap water is that, now, when we turn our taste buds to bottled water, we have a long list of “don’t wants,” but a hazy idea of what we do want in our water. We’re just learning. Understanding all the bottled water option is the first step to take as we begin to wean ourselves off of tap water.”

This image can be deconstructed. Paradoxically, both Dasani (Coke’s water label) and Aquafina (Pepsi Co’s) are simply reprocessed tap water. Consumers are paying inflated prices for something they have already paid for through their own municipal taxes – quality tap water. It has simply been filtered, mineralized (in Coke’s case), bottled, and neatly packaged for sale. Bottled water corporations like to imply that these ‘proprietary’ treatment processes are elaborate thereby justifying the higher cost of their products (bottled water is between 240 and 10,000 times more expensive than tap water). Yet, the industry’s treatment processes do not guarantee that bottled water is safer than tap water; in fact, a number of studies have demonstrated that bottled water is often less safe. Consider that one treatment process uses bromate, which is considered to be a carcinogen. Several peer-reviewed scientific studies have found disturbing concentrations of toxic ingredients such as arsenic and mercury in their bottled water samplings. When Coke launched Dasani in the UK, March 2004, it had to withdraw nearly half a million bottles due to bromate contamination. Consider that bottling plants face inspections, on average, only once every 3-to-6 years. This contrasts tap water regulations that are often stricter. For example, the City of Toronto tests its water quality every 4 hours!

Another marketing tactic of the bottled water industry has been the promotion of their product as convenient. Whether it be fashionable messages carrying their brand, such as clever and colourful designs to hook on to knapsacks or the marketing of a product fit for a fast paced world of trendsetters, bottled water goes wherever you go. Bottled water is also available for sale wherever you go. Our schools are no exception to this marketing strategy. Coke and Pepsi have been eagerly acquiring exclusive beverage agreements for our schools and campuses. Sometimes known as pouring or exclusivity contracts, these contracts give beverage companies exclusive rights to sell their products on school or district grounds. These exclusivity contracts have been met with resistance from students and school administrators for a variety of reasons.

One resistance strategy used by students challenging their beverage contracts has been questioning the exclusivity contract itself. Firstly, it is being underlined that any money garnered is simply a certain percent of the profits acquired from students putting their money into vending machines. These contracts are typically negotiated with extreme confidentiality. In return for exclusive rights these beverage corporations ‘give’ schools and universities a certain amount of money. The math of the contracts is also being challenged. Darko Matovic, an engineering professor at Queen’s, developed a utility calculator that shows how much energy vending machines on campus use. In the case of Queen’s, he has shown that Coke’s 150 vending machines electrical usage can cost the university anywhere between $72, 000 and $175,000 per year which sizably reduces the value of the ‘cash for access’ deal with Coke valued at $500 000 per year. The financial benefits of these contracts are also being weighed against stiff conditions like the right to include corporate logos on school property and guaranteed compensation if contracts are broken. Schools are also obligated to sell an enormous number of corporate products over the life of the contract. If they fail, penalties apply like extending the life of the contracts.

The financial benefits of these contracts also need to be weighed against the association of school’s reputations with corporations like Coke and Pepsi that have tainted track records globally. As a recent article in Fortune magazine suggests, student movement leaders attending the Coke shareholder meeting in Wilmington Delaware April 19th are making these connections. Throughout the event Canadian and American students raised questions concerning the depletion of water by Coke bottling plants in India and labour relations in Columbia and Turkey. Students were well articulated and cited reliable information that seriously challenged the integrity of Coke’s operations internationally. The example of 8 workers at Coke plants in Columbia being murdered since 1989 was often mentioned. There is substantial evidence linking managers of several bottling plants to the paramilitary groups carrying out the attacks. The challenges faced by local farmers in Plachimada India near a Coke bottling plant having their wells dry up and crop yields shrink forcing many to abandon their farms was also highlighted. Pepsi is no exception to such corporate accountability problems. In 2002 in the face of Argentina’s economic crisis 52 temporary workers were fired from a potato chip factory in the Buenos Aires province. When these workers refused to leave the factory sent in security guards that used force in an attempt to move the fired workers who were not part of the union. When permanent workers quickly responded, armed security guards were deployed to patrol the factory. Pepsi has also demonstrated specious respect for the environment in its actions. In 1990 Pepsi publicly pledge to use 25% recycled material in their plastic bottles but later quietly decided that this would be too costly. When Coke announced in 2002 that it would include 10% recycled material in their bottles, Pepsi quickly followed suit.

The role of exclusivity contracts in the commercialization of education also needs to be considered. In an era in which education is increasingly under funded, corporations are ‘conveniently’ in place to provide financial support, but not without a cost. Schools, universities and colleges are increasingly reflecting the Big Business model whether it is by naming buildings or seeing students as customers rather than citizens. Exclusivity contracts are another way that the growing connections between campus and ‘McWorld’ are becoming more apparent. Consider Coke and Pepsi representative’s own words on this topic: “We know high school students will continue to drink Coca-Cola products for 50-60 years…we’re trying to gain their business for the future” Coca-Cola Youth Market Representative. “ Schools are struggling to meet costs and budgets are being voted down, so they’re looking for new sources of revenue. And us, we always look for ways to connect with teenagers.” Pepsi Spokesperson David DeCecca.

Convenience or corporate greed?

Until recently, bottled water has flown under the radar of challenges to beverage exclusivity contracts. Increasingly student movement leaders are connecting bottled water issues with concerns over the nature of these contracts, corporate accountability and commercialization of student space. Students are beginning to question the ‘convenience’ of paying up to $1.50 for a bottle of water at school rather then drink from the tap. Student movement leaders attending the student run ‘McMaster Choice Conference’ targeting beverage exclusivity contracts with Coca-Cola in February of this year underlined the importance of defending the presence of water fountains on campus. Students have numerous accounts of the unavailability of water fountains on their campuses. CUPE maintenance staff at the University of British Columbia, home of the first Canadian beverage exclusivity contract, found that 44% of water fountains were removed or disabled on campus within the first 3 years of the contract. Students at Queen’s University noted the strategic placement of vending machines to block students from using water fountains.

Awareness is also being disseminated relating to the cost of this ‘convenience’. Highly dangerous toxic chemicals and contaminants are released into our air and water caused in the manufacturing, burying and burning of these bottles. These same plastic packages are quickly becoming the fastest-growing form of municipal solid waste in the U.S. and Canada!

Students, as well as other groups, are beginning to connect the dots between the trend of bottled water in relation to water privatization. We need to consider the costs of tacitly agreeing to pay for water sold for profit. Consumer willingness to pay more for a litre of bottled water than they pay for a litre of gas helps to set the stage for public acceptance of the privatization of water services. Water corporations that have a global presence like Suez, Veolia, and RWE-Thames stand to benefit from this trend. In 2003 all three water service corporations confirmed that they have set their sights on of the public water services in Canada and the U.S. and the corporate objective is to move the utilities operations, and/or delivery of water and waste water services from public to private hands. This is a dramatic change given that 95% of water utilities in Canada are currently publicly owned. Water is being transformed from a human right to a commodity and service that has a price tag for those who can afford it. The right to water has serious implications if trend lines of supply and demand prove accurate. Consider that by 2025 some forecast are that demand for water will exceed supply by more than 50%.

The concerns outlined here in relation to the trend of bottled water and beverage exclusivity contracts in schools and campuses are driving an ever increasingly number of NGOs, student and faith based groups and more generally, civil society, to resist the privatization and commodification of water.

The strong presence at the Coke AGM in Wilmington Delaware is but one example of how these groups are transforming the articulation of these critiques into action. Bottled water taste tests that raise awareness of the ruse that is bottled water are being held on campuses and public spaces across North America. An increasing number of campuses (such as Guelph, Carleton, McMaster and Ottawa University) are gearing up for campaigns in 2006/2007. Student interest groups and unions are holding democratic votes asking whether students want these contracts on campus (in the case of Coke at McMaster, the overwhelming response was no) and hosting speaking tours such as the fall tour of Sandeep Pandey, a water activist in India, featured at Ottawa campuses. Many secondary Catholic schools in Ontario are encouraging awareness of bottled water in the classroom.
Picture this.

The image of bottled water so carefully constructed by the industry is crumbling. Rather than a pristine natural surrounding you see bottled water for water it truly is – a ruse.

There is a new image in town and it is catching on. It’s called ethics.

Andrea Harden
Bottled Water Campaigner
Polaris Institute

Karl Flecker
Water Programme Director
Polaris Institute