Coca Cola, others charged with greenwash at protest in San Francisco

Hopefully the government and resources in India and other countries will be responsible to its citizens and ensure proper water use.

When tap water can be cleansed without chlorine, floride and /or amonia then I will be happy to return to drinking it.

I don't buy the small bottles but rather the large multi gallons one since plastic is one of the biggest users of petroleum products and I don't want to support the use of that fossil fuel so I try to limit any purchase of plastic products and recylce all that I do purchase.

Who stated here that consumers aren't responsible too? Giving up bottled water shows that responsibility. Have you done that? Also, this protest was mainly for the communities in India in that video above and other peoples in developing countries that don't have a voice against these large corporations that use these conventions to now greenwash their human rights abuses. Do you care about them?

Great that people want to protest corporation waste but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these protesters with a plastic bottle in their hands , Coca-cola in their mouths, or cigarette on their ears because they can't see consumers are responsible too.

Given that drinking is rather a necessary activity, you'd think people would pay more attention to access to water. I've got links that would scare any sane person silly.
Check Wikipedia's entry on Hydraulic Empire and then segue over to Levees.org.
It should snap your head back. Think of Katrina as only one of a succession of infrastructure failures pending.

Bottled water is a rip off and you were suckered. Bottled water is nothing more than "hot arse and goat sex" (strange choice of words) in a fancy bottle put through a filtration device you can now buy for your own faucet.

Last time I remember US tap water tasted like hot arse and goat sex. Bottled water was the best thing to happen to the beverage industry as far as I am concerned.

Corporations: Hold them accountable.
Politicians; Hold them accountable.
Judges and Bureaucrats: Them too.

Two good resolutions for the new year in this opinion: give up the bottle and quit Coke.

Upside? Frustration and anger can lead to protest and change.
Downside? It also, usually, leads to excessive retroactive violence.
That's the America I've witnessed over the years.
Worth every risk, too.

Some recent bottled water statistics
The United States as of the end of 2007 consumed the most bottled water on the planet. That is a lot of plastic swirling in the Pacific, and a lot of profits for companies that take the water from those who need it to live and in the process pollute their communities. This is as much a moral issue as it is an economic and environmental one. We must change our ways now to save ourselves.

I put nothing past them either. All the more reason to enlighten as many as we can about them.

The economic struggles that we are facing could be a blessing in disguise. Corporation could become more attentive to consumer complaints. At the same time the eco movement and eco awareness have developed to the point of an affective level. There is no light at the end of the tunnel but if you squint , there is a faint glimmer.

Bottled water sales are down as well. People are waking up.

pjacobs51,
That is for sure. Branded a terrorist if you speak out against something.

But it is good that people are starting to take the abusers to task.

Yes! It's good to see people are finally waking up.

Or maybe they've been scared the last eight years to be branded as a terrorist if they complain about something.

From the article:

The Coca-Cola company and other water companies including Pepsico and Nestle Waters were challenged in San Francisco by a broad coalition of groups, charging the companies with greenwashing and abusing water resources.

Corporate Water Footprint

The water companies were in San Francisco for a meeting entitled "Corporate Water Footprinting: Towards a Sustainable Water Strategy" on December 2 and 3, 2008 to ostensibly outline water conservation strategies.

The coalition held a Water Rights conference to a capacity-filled venue on December 2nd as well as a protest, including street theater, at the corporate conference venue today.

"A conference geared towards sustainable use of water is indeed welcome, but having the largest water abusers in charge is not," said Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the Council of Canadians and Senior Water Advisor to the United Nations.

"More than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and climate change is further depleting freshwater resources," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "Given the absence of perspectives from those without access to water, the corporate conference appears aimed more at polishing the images of some of the world's biggest water abusers rather than addressing the very real global water crisis."

"Providing access to water cannot be ensured through privatization and must not be subject to the whims of the market. Over 3 billion people live on less than US $2.50 a day and the commodification of water literally means that a substantial part of the world - particularly the poor and the marginalized - will be unable to afford water," said Amit Srivastava of the International Campaign Against Coca-Cola and the India Resource Center.

Coca-Cola's role in the corporate conference, in particular, was harshly criticized because of the company's announcement to become "water neutral".

Mark Franco from Winnemem Wintu Tribe Making His Case Against Water Abusers

"Coca-Cola's own concept paper on water neutrality states that the term is misleading and troublesome because it is impossible to become water neutral. Yet the company has decided that that the term makes for good marketing and is pushing it, regardless of the fact that the company continues to destroy water resources for tens of thousand of people in India," said Srivastava.

The Coca-Cola company is the target of community-led campaigns across India for denying access to water, and two Coca-Cola bottling plants have been shut down as a result. The Coca-Cola company has responded by increasing its advertising budget and increasing its "corporate social responsibility" initiatives, of which water neutrality is a part.