Today at FLOW, we are launching our latest campaign. It’s called Get Off the Bottle, and it combines facts, law, and policy with good old fashioned humor about the absurd implications of bottled water, whose sales surpassed the sales of soda for the first time in 2016.
Just think about that for a moment. Did you ever think there would be a moment in your lifetime when bottled water sales would outstrip soda sales? For some of us, the question is even more basic: did you ever think companies like Nestle, Coke, Pepsi, Evian would make billions of dollars annually by selling you tap water (which you already paid for via taxes and fees) in plastic water bottles? I don’t know about you, but I guess I spent a lot of my childhood dehydrated!
The “Get Off the Bottle” campaign is designed to get citizens thinking and to empower them to make smart, protective decisions for our Great Lakes. We raise important questions about the cost, misleading labels, flavor, safety, energy waste, harm to streams and wetlands, lack of disclosure, plastic waste and other related issues. And what better way to explore these subtle yet complex issues than with humor?
Bottled water is part of a larger conversation and awareness about interconnected issues of failing water infrastructure, water affordability, equity, and privatization. As we launch this campaign, we will get bottled water in people’s thoughts and out of their hands.
AT the Blissfest Music Festival we do not allow bottled water sales and encourage our patrons to fill up on the unlimited pure water from our well that is Health Dept. tested and some of the best tasting and cleanest water around. We also have reusable containers available for sale and promote our sustainability vision through our festival program and stage announcement during our event.
Thank you, Jim Gillespie, for elevating the perils of bottled water at Blissfest Music Festival. It would be wonderful to see more music venues follow your lead.
Very curious as to how I can help with this campaign. I have marched, held up signs at malls, written letters, and encouraged students to fill up at the tap for twenty or more years. The foolishness goes on, BUYING water that is already a public domain. People complain about gas prices while paying more for water!