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The Human Right to Water and Bottled Water

“The Human Right to Water” Add to the “Right to Water” Wiki Page- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#For_drinking

Access to clean water is a major problem for many parts of the world. The United Nations states “11 percent of the global population remains without access to an improved source of drinking water.” These sources include “household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collections.” Although 11 percent of the global population lacks access to water there are “regions particularly delayed such as Sub-Saharan Africa where over 40 percent of all people without improved drinking water live.” It is concerning that approximately 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water. The UN further emphasizes this problem by citing studies which “indicate about 1.5 million children under the age of five die each year and 443 million school days are lost because of water- and sanitation-related diseases.”

In countries such as Burma, Kenya, and Haiti less than half of the population has access to safe drinking water due to natural factors, poor management, and political factors. An example of a political factor that contributes to a lack of access to water is the Sudanese government forcing 80,000 squatters to relocate to a camp that only has one well. The UN has described these conditions as a virtual “death sentence”. Another political obstacle that contributes to a lack of access to safe drinking water is that the Israeli government does not connect many communities in Israel to water networks and as a result, these communities face poor health conditions. Poor government management of water resources contributes to lack of access to clean water. For example, the Libyan government used valuable water resources to build a “$25 billion artificial river” when the majority of Libyans do not have access water or sewer systems.

United Nations took a major step in July of 2010 when the United Nations General Assembly recognized the right to water and sanitation as a human right. “The Assembly recognized the right of every human being to have access to sufficient water for personal and domestic uses (between 50 and 100 liters of water per person per day), which must be safe, acceptable and affordable (water costs should not exceed 3 per cent of household income), and physically accessible (the water source has to be within 1,000 meters of the home and collection time should not exceed 30 minutes).” Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is not merely a high priority goal, but is a human right. The General Assembly declared that clean drinking water is “essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights.”

In order to combat the problem of access to clean water the UN is undertaking activities that “specially focus on the sustainable development of fragile and finite freshwater resources, which are under increasing stress from population growth, pollution and the demands of agricultural and industrial uses.”

Water shortages and increasing consumption of freshwater make this right incredibly complicated. As the world population rapidly increases, freshwater shortages present many problems. A shortage in the quantity of water brings up the question of whether or not water should be transferred from one country to another.

The commercialization of water is offered as a response to the increased scarcity of water that has resulted due to the world population tripling while the demand for water has increased six-fold. Market environmentalism uses the markets as a solution to environmental problems such as environmental degradation and an inefficient use of resources. Supporters of market environmental believe that the managing of water as an economic good by private companies will be more effective than political accountability by citizens through their representatives. The opponents believe that water is a human right and that there should be no private sector involvement because water should be given to all people because it is essential to life. The framing of access to water as a human right limits private companies because human rights are state-centric and combat privatization efforts. A human right to water “generally rests on two justifications: the non-substitutability of drinking water (“essential for life”), and the fact that many other human rights which are explicitly recognized in the UN Conventions are predicated upon an (assumed) availability of water (eg the right to food).” The World Health Organization and the UN Development Programme “articulate several arguments in favor of the human right to water: higher political priority given to water issues; new legal avenues for citizens to compel states to supply basic water needs; and the fact that the right to water is implicit in other rights (such as the rights to food, life, health, and dignity) which have already been recognized in international law, and which are implicitly recognized through legal precedents when courts support right of non-payment for water services on grounds of lack of affordability.”

The World Summit on Sustainable Development says that water is crucial to agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystems, and combating poverty. The framing of water as a human right places international and national legal obligations and responsibilities on countries. “Environmental Injustice Aspects of Bottled Water” Add to the “Bottled Water” Wiki Page- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water

Bottled water is much more expensive than safe tap water. This extra cost falls most heavily on people of lower socioeconomic status. The lack of safe drinking water, or merely the fear of contamination in tap water drives people to purchase bottled water. The buying of bottled water imposes special financial burdens on poor and minority communities.

The Pacific Institute, in March 2011, examined the costs of contaminated drinking water due to nitrates in California's Central Valley. The study concluded that “the costs of avoiding unsafe tap water were higher for low-income and minority households that were disproportionately affected by contamination. In the communities studied, the average total water costs for households took 4.6% of median household income, more than three times the affordability threshold for drinking water recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).” The study did not factor in the additional costs of increased healthcare spending due to drinking contaminated water. Much of this added cost was for bottled water purchases or the purchase of household filters.

A further study by M.H. Gorelick, L. Gould, M. Nimmer, D. Wagner, M. Heath, H. Bashir, and D.C. Brousseau shows that “even in areas with safe tap water, African American and Latino parents were three times more likely to give their children mostly bottled water compared to non-Latino white children, because of their belief that bottled water is safer, cleaner, better tasting, or more convenient. The economic implications of this also showed serious inequities: as a percentage of household income, whites reported median spending of 0.4% of their income on bottled water; African Americans and Latinos reported median spending to be more than twice as high.” The authors of the study determine: "For poor families, the use of bottled water may lead to less availability of resources for other health needs, as suggested in our study by the rather striking levels of expenditure on water relative to household income." On a global scale, markets for bottled water in poorer developing countries are growing rapidly due to increased fears of “contaminated tap water, inadequate municipal water systems, and increased marketing on the part of bottled water companies.” Sales of bottled water in Mexico, China, and parts of India, are rising steeply.

People perceive bottled water as being a safer alternative to other sources of water such as tap water. Bottled water usage has increased even in countries where clean tap water is present. This may be attributed to consumers disliking the taste of tap water or its organoleptics. Another contributing factor to this phenomenon could be the marketing success of bottled water. In the early 1990s the bottled water industry “was spending about $43 million dollars in ads”. The success of bottled water marketing can be seen by Perrier’s transformation of a bottle of water into a status symbol. Consumers tend to choose bottled water due to health related reasons. In communities that experience problems with their tap water, bottled water consumption is significantly higher. The International Bottled Water Association guidelines state that bottled water companies cannot compare their product to tap water in marketing operations. Consumers are also affected by memories associated with particular brands. For example, Coca-Cola took their Dasani product off of the UK market after finding levels of bromate that were higher than legal standards because consumers in the UK associated this flaw with the Dasani product.

“Bottled water sales are higher amongst African – American, Asians and Hispanic groups, which typically have lower incomes than whites.” Some hypothesize that these differences are due to the geographic distribution of ethnic groups. It was theorized that ethnic differences in bottled water usage “mirror the variability of water system quality between urban, suburban and rural areas (Abrahams et al. 2000) and it was also pointed out that they might reflect the memory of past problems caused by deficient tap-water systems in deprived areas (Olson 1999).” In France, a similar geographic study in the early 1970s found that bottled water consumption was found to be much higher in urban areas (Ferrier 2001). This finding was “also explained in terms of the poor quality of urban tap water and of the bad condition of the old lead pipes in French cities. Nonetheless, while poor tap water quality may motivate the public to search for alternative sources, it alone does not necessarily lead to higher consumption of bottled water.”

Some surveys “found that bottled water, far from being an alternative to tap water, seems to be mostly consumed as a substitute for alcoholic and traditional soft drinks (e.g. AWWA-RF 1993; FWR 1996) – the exception being when water contamination presents serious health risks and the trust in the tap water company is highly eroded (e.g. Lonnon 2004).” Another explanation for the rise in popularity of bottled water is alternative explanation is that “the consumption of ‘pure’ and ‘natural’ bottled water in degraded environments may represent a symbolic purging behavior.”

Many low-income families avoid drinking tap water because they fear it may causes sickness. Excessive use of “bottled and filtered water is costly and may result in adverse dental health outcomes.” “The consumption of bottled and filtered water has dramatically increased in the United States during the past decade, with bottled water sales tripling to about $4 billion a year. More than 50% of the US population drinks bottled water. Despite the fact that it is widely believed that 25% to 40% of bottled water is simply bottled tap water, ‘people spend from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they typically do for tap water.’ An annual supply of bottled water for a person who consumes 8 glasses a day would cost approximately $200; the same amount of tap water would cost approximately $0.33. In general, women are more likely to drink bottled water than men, and Hispanic women are the group most likely to drink bottled water.”

Bottled, filtered, and tap water are all for the most part safe in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency regulations for tap water are “actually stricter than the Food and Drug Administration regulations for bottled water.” A study of drinking water in Cincinnati, Ohio, discovered that bacterial counts in bottled water were often higher than those in tap water and fluoride concentration was inconsistent.” Globally, there is an intensifying environmental backlash against bottled water usage. As global consumption of bottled water soars, environmental groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Greenpeace have warned of the huge environmental footprint of the plastic in which the water is packaged.

Bottled water also requires large amounts of energy to produce and transport. An Australian town in New South Wales even voted to ban bottled water because of environmental concerns. In 2001 a WWF study, “Bottled water: understanding a social phenomenon”, warned that in many countries, bottled water may be no safer or healthier than tap water and it sold for up to 1,000 times the price. It said the booming market would put severe pressure on recycling plastics and could lead to landfill sites drowning in mountains of plastic bottles.” Also, the study discovered that the production of bottled water uses more water than the consumer actually buys in the bottle itself. After a Sydney-based beverage company wanted to open a water extraction plant in the New South Wales town Bundanoon, residents outlawed the sale of bottled water. The town continues to fight the company’s proposal in court. “The ‘Bundy on Tap’ initiative now sells reusable bottles instead, which Bundanoon citizens can refill at the town’s numerous free public water fountains. They can also pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the town’s stores.” “In the same week the New South Wales state premier also banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water because of its huge environmental footprint, joining more than 70 cities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom that have banned bottled water in their departments.” In South Africa, Cape Town city councillor Stuart Pringle is fighting to “ban bottled water from all council meetings and municipal buildings. He told the Cape Argus that the city spent more than R125 000 on bottled water during the 2008/2009 financial year. This accounted for almost 21 000 bottles of water at an estimated environmental cost of 9 000kg of fossil fuels being depleted and 6 000kg of greenhouse gas being emitted.”

References 1. "General Assembly Declares Access to Clean Water and Sanitation Is a Human Right." UN News Center. UN, 28 July 2010. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

2. "Global Issues at the United Nations." UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

3. McCaffrey, Stephen C. "Human Right to Water: Domestic and International Implications, A." Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 5 (1992): 1.

4. Bakker, Karen. "The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization, Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South." Antipode 39.3 (2007): 430-455.

5. Scanlon, John, Angela Cassar, and Noémi Nemes. Water as a human right?. No. 51. IUCN, 2004.

6. Gleick, Peter H. "Another Cost of Bottled Water: Environmental Injustice and Inequity." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 June 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

7. Ferrier, Catherine. "Bottled water: understanding a social phenomenon." AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 30.2 (2001): 118-119.

8. Wilk, Richard. "Bottled Water The pure commodity in the age of branding." journal of Consumer Culture 6.3 (2006): 303-325.

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10. Hobson, Wendy L., et al. "Bottled, filtered, and tap water use in Latino and non-Latino children." Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine 161.5 (2007): 457-461.

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