Flow: For The Love of Water

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The other night, I watched a troubling film on the Sundance channel on cable TV entitled “Flow: For The Love of Water”. (Often, I get fired up about things I’ve recently become aware of, then realize that others have been working arduously on the issue for a long time and I’m late to the game.) Start with this 2-minute trailer. The entire film (84 mins. long) is available “on demand” on Comcast cable until 5/5/2009. I’ve also purchased a copy for our library. Perhaps your public library also has a copy you can borrow, if you cannot access the film otherwise.

The proposed Article 31 of the United Nations charter says the following:

• Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.

You can sign a petition supporting Article 31 here:

Here are a few other points from the cover of the film:

• On average, bottled water costs 900 times the amount of tap water;
• This year, Americans will spend $40 billion on bottled water;
• 25% of all bottled water is re-packaged tap water;
• Tap water regulation has more stringent governmental standards than that of bottled water regulation;
• The amount of oil required to put one bottle of water in your hand would fill 1/4 of that same bottle;
• 90% of used water bottles are not recycled;
• Right now, millions of pounds of trash are floating in the Pacific Ocean to form an “island” at least twice the size of Texas – 90% of that trash is discarded plastic.

This is about much more than bottles and water quality.