Bottled

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Movie
German title Bottled
Original title Tapped
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 75 minutes
Age rating FSK without age restriction
Rod
Director Stephanie Soechtig ,
Jason Lindsey (Co-Director)
script Josh David ,
Jason Lindsey,
Stephanie Soechtig
production Sarah Gibson ,
Stephanie Soechtig
music Jason Brandt
camera Michael Millikan
cut Jason Lindsey

Bottled (original title: Tapped ) is a documentary from 2009.

content

According to estimates by the UN , around 2/3 of the world's population will no longer have sufficient clean drinking water by 2030 . If water is not viewed as a fundamental right , but only as a commodity , the price of which is determined by supply and demand, this will lead in the long term to corporate control over all drinking water. If access to a basic need like water becomes more difficult for people, this also forms the basis for political instability.

In 2007 alone, over 29 billion single-use bottles of water were purchased in the US . The World Bank puts the value of the worldwide sales volume for water at 800 billion US dollars.

The food company Nestlé had a turnover of 3.6 billion US dollars in 2008 with the sale of bottled water. Nestlé pumps the water, for example, from the 3,000-inhabitant community of Fryeburg ( Maine ). In the United States, surface water is a public trust, and groundwater has different rules, depending on the state. The state of Maine has unrestricted ownership, which means that whoever has the largest pump receives most of the water. Nestlé pumps the water away for free, has a total processing and packaging cost of 6 to 11 US cents per gallon and then sells it for around 6 US cents per gallon , which is around 2,000 times the price of their domestic tap water for the end user. The approach taken by Nestlé in Fryeburg is exemplary of the approach taken by large food companies around the world. Since Nestlé had drilled a deeper spring for pumping out than the water source for the community, the entire community ran out of water for a day and a half while Nestlé continued to pump out the water.

In addition to Nestlé, the largest bottled water companies in the USA also include the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo . In Durham, North Carolina, PepsiCo pumped 1.5 million liters from the community floor every day, and didn't stop during a drought. Instead, the community had to buy back its own bottled water from PepsiCo when the community ran out of water. When the city of Atlanta and the north of the US state Georgia suffered from a severe drought, people and businesses had to be called on to save water. However, the Coca-Cola Company pumped water unchecked during the drought. The plant in Marietta, Georgia alone used 446 million liters of water in 2007.

Barbara Lippert from Adweek describes bottled water as the greatest marketing ploy of all time. In large advertising campaigns with athletes and models it is suggested to the consumer that bottled water is healthier than tap water . In advertising, terms such as “healthy”, “safe”, “natural” or “pure” are often used, which should represent unfilled water as “unhealthy”, “unsafe”, “unnatural” or “unclean”. In many cases, the bottled water is nothing more than tap water, as for example with the Coca-Cola brand Dasani (in Germany Bonaqa ) or with the PepsiCo brand Aquafina , which shows a mountain range on the label and thus also pictorially Misleads consumers about the origin of the water.

Susan Wellington, CEO of PepsiCo brand Gatorade said, “When we're done, tap water will be banned for showering and washing dishes,” and Robert Morrison, CEO of Quaker Oats Company , which has been part of PepsiCo since 2001, said, “The biggest enemy is tap water ". Basically private corporations would steal their water from the general public in order to sell it again for a profit, using advertisements to persuade people that they were getting something special and great, even though it was no different from tap water.

Water is usually filled into bottles made of PET . 80 percent of all PET produced in the USA is only used for beverage bottles from Nestlé, Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. In the USA alone, the production of plastic bottles uses 2.7 billion liters of oil per year. The largest privately owned oil refinery in the United States is Flint Hills in Corpus Christi, Texas . The residents in the vicinity of the facility suffer from health problems and more often die of cancer. The rate of malformations in newborns there is 84 percent higher than the state average. A former employee of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains that every purchaser of PET bottles contributes to the poisoning of the environment and the suffering of the people at the production sites.

Around 70 percent of bottled water is consumed within the same state in which it was produced and is therefore not subject to any control by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For bottled water that is under FDA control, one relies solely on the manufacturer's own reports. While tap water is regularly checked by the EPA, there are no mandatory quality checks for bottled water. You rely on samples from the bottlers, who are also not obliged to publish their data.

Contrary to the assumption that bottled water should be safe and pure, numerous bacteria and chemicals have been found in research. Bottled water was checked by two different laboratories in an independent test. A toxicologist from Toxicology Inc. analyzed the data and was appalled by the measurement results of PET bottles in which vinyl chloride , butadiene , styrene , toluene , benzene and diethyl phthalate , dimethyl phthalate and di-n-octyl phthalate were found in the water .

In classic water dispensers (5- gallon water containers), which are made of polycarbonates , bisphenol A was also detected in the water . In addition to water dispensers, many sports bottles (e.g. for cyclists) and baby bottles release the harmful bisphenol A, which also has an effect on the body like estrogen . Regulators play down the problem by invoking the 16th century concept that only dose is a poison. However, this does not apply to chemical substances that act like hormones and make even the smallest amounts of bisphenol A a health hazard. In a study with doses 25,000 times lower than in all previous scientific studies, bisphenol A had damaged the reproductive organs of a male mouse. The Dow Chemical company then wanted the scientists to hold back their study “for mutual benefit” until the chemical industry agreed to publication.

Many of the 80 million one-way water bottles used every day in the United States end up in the ocean, where ocean currents sweep them and wash them up on remote shores, such as Kamilo Beach in Hawaii . In addition to the accumulation of plastic waste in the North Pacific vortex, there is also the eastern garbage carpet in the Pacific, which is twice the size of Texas and practically consists of "plastic soup". The same problem also exists in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans . When samples were taken in the middle of the sea, there were more small-sized plastic parts in the water than plankton . In investigations in 1999 there were 6 times as many plastic parts and in 2008 it was 46 times as many. The plastic garbage turns the oceans into a plastic broth and is deadly for the sea creatures, as the plastic releases chemical substances and small plastic parts are also eaten by fish.

Nestlé, PepsiCo, and the Coca-Cola Company declined all interviews for the film.

background

Musician Jack Johnson supported the film by hosting a screening in Hawaii and recording a personal video message about the film.

Reviews

“The film sets out to search for clues on site, where international corporations pump out water for free, fill it in bottles and sell it on at high prices. [..] In addition, the film also provides a reference to the plastics industry and the pollution of the environment. In particular, he highlights the pollution of the world's oceans by plastic and plastic bottles. "

- German film and media rating

"In her documentary" Tapped ", the Swiss filmmaker shows the struggle of civil groups against various large corporations, but above all against Nestlé. The film also castigates the damage caused by billions and billions of plastic bottles that are not recycled . "

- nano : 3sat

“I knew bottled water was a social evil, but I didn't realize how harmful it was until I saw a high-explosive and compelling documentary called Tapped . With style, panache and righteous anger, the film reveals the role of the bottled water industry in deceiving the public, damaging our health, accelerating climate change, contributing to all-encompassing pollution, and increasing US dependence on fossil fuels. All of this while ripping the consumer off with excessively exaggerated and unsustainable prices. "

- Peter Rothberg : The Nation

Soundtrack

Awards

  • Anchorage International Film Festival 2009: Best Feature Length Documentary
  • Colorado Environmental Film Festival 2009: Best of Fest
  • Eugene International Film Festival 2009: Best Documentary
  • Indie Fest 2009: Indie Fest Award of Excellence
  • Honolulu Film Festival 2010: Gold Kahuna Award
  • Mendocino Film Festival 2010: Best Film for Our Future Award
  • German film and media rating : Predicate valuable

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tapped PSA - Jack Johnson on YouTube
  2. ↑ Film evaluation of the German film and media evaluation
  3. ^ Film "Tapped": An indictment against Nestlé dated September 6, 2010
  4. ↑ Bottled Water Sucks, August 5, 2009