In high school, I was a member and co-president of WaterAid International, a club dedicated to educating people about the world water crisis and fundraising for water infrastructure projects in developing countries. I attended a talk given by Deborah Lapidus of Corporate Accountability International (CAI) with my club and learned about the environmental and human rights problems associated with bottled water. I was in a teen film program at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the time. I was so blown away by Deborah's talk that I decided to make a documentary about bottled water for my class project in the hopes that I could educate other people about what I had learned. Deborah agreed to my filming her at a workshop she was giving, where I met Tina Clarke, Campaign Director for Massachusetts Clean Water Action. Tina agreed to be interviewed about corporation efforts to extract water for bottling purposes in Massachusetts. I was invited by CAI to film a "Think Outside the Bottle" action at a Coke shareholders' meeting in Wilmington, Delaware. I also interviewed someone from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, who spoke about the high quality of Massachusetts tap water. My film addresses the prevalence of bottled water, reasons people buy it and the environmental and social costs associated with it. Many people told me that they plan to stop drinking bottled water after seeing the film. Other people have either continued to drink bottled water or only stopped temporarily.
Learning Questions
1. How many liters of water did Americans buy in 2006?
2. How much have sales of bottled water increased between 1997-2005?
3. Do you buy bottled water? If so, at what moments do you choose to buy a bottle?
4. Can you tell the difference between your tap water and bottled water?
5. What is one large problem with bottled water?
6. What does it mean to have water privatized? Why is this a problem?
7. Does this film change your opinion of bottled water? Why or why not?
SnagLearning is dedicated to presenting high-quality documentary films as educational tools to ignite meaningful discussion within the learning community.
