Bottled water corporations attempt to sneak legislation that forces National Parks to sell plastic water bottles
Over 200 corporations, including Deer Park, Fiji, Evian and other well known bottled water producers, have spent more than $500,000 lobbying (that's legally bribing) politicians to overturn the National Parks' decision to ban the sale of plastic water bottles.
In 2011, Park Service Director, John Jarvis, issued a memo to all US national parks, monuments and historical sites that allowed them to decide if they wanted to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. They were clogging up waterways and finding their way into all sorts of damaging places, disrupting the protected land and costing exorbitant amounts of money to clean up. The parks "pay a premium for litter removal and waste disposal," said Jarvis, while stating that it was the goal of the system to be "a visible exemplar of sustainability."
But it was cutting into profits. The corporations got together and began a campaign stating, as a base tenant, that removing the sale of plastic water bottles would force people to buy unhealthy drinks like Coca Cola. They paid someone in Congress to tack an amendment onto a House spending bill that gives companies legal protection to sell their wares inside the boundaries of National Parks and now people are actually arguing the case on the floor of the Senate.
When Coca Cola (the bottlers of Dasani brand water) initially threatened to withdraw financial support from the the Grand Canyon for enacting the ban, overwhelming public support is what enabled them to go through with it. Plastic water bottles had made up 30% of all waste in the park and was the largest source of trash in the canyon.
Now we need public support to push back against these bottled water corporations again.
http://inhabitat.com/big-water-fights-plans-to-reduce-plastic-pollution-in-national-parks/