[Sustainable System] Writing Assignment #2 – “Tapped”

 

 

• Externalities

Externalities

Impact (Postivie / Negative)

Nestle mining water Purchasers of Poland spring paying for the process including extracting packaging (6-11cents) Legal rights to mine & sell water taken Town Without water for day and a half (Nursing home let fire department bring in water)   Less accessibilities to water   Customers paying 1900 times the cost of tapped water for the filtered tap water   Drought (climate change)   People cutting down water usage(Georgia) Severe Water restrictions on field and living   Trashes in water (plastic bottle) High Premium for water   714 million gallons of oil that is enough to fuel 100,000 cars wasted benzene causing death, heart cancer, breast cancer. process, pain and suffering by people living near the plastic bottle manufacturing companies contaminating water by PET by leakage of chemicals soil, air, water contaminated people who drink bottled water exposed to toxins people living near by the PET company exposed to toxin Diseases such as adverse reproductive effect, childhood diabetes, brain disorders, liver disease Landfilled waste(shore, beach, sea pollution) Killing Natural inhabitant (Lantern fish, birds)

Negative Negative   Negative   Negative   Negative     Negative   Negative   Negative     Negative   Negative       Negative Negative     Negative     Negative     Negative Negative     Negative     Negative   Negative     Negative

 

 

• Players/Agents

Players/Agents	Role/Career/Title/Activity	Impact
PepsiCo	Water mining, continuing with its bottling plan operation 400thousand gallons of water. Associated waters with athelete and celebrities. Test the product but not required to submit report to FDA	(Negative) Droughts on villages, customer Manipulation of customer mind. Series of diseases
Nestle Waters Poland Spring, Deer Park Zephyrhills, Ozarka, IceMuntain, Arrowhead	Largest profiteers from bottled water in rural town and do water mining. Foot in the community without local people who will be impacted not knowing them	(Negative)   Company getting the profit while people are disadvantaged. Lack of water and control over water.   Distorted customer view.
Coke	Water mining. Associated waters with athelete and celebrities. Test the product but not required to submit report to FDA	(Negative) Droughts on villages, customer Manipulation of customer mind. Series of diseases
The World Bank	Place the value of world water market 800 billlion dollor	(Negative)   Huge corp salivating to get into water market
Court of lawyer , town hall representatives	Handle the case regarding the legal right on the water	(Positive)
Perrier	Produce sparkling water	(Negative) Gave notion to people that sparkling waters are healthy and luxury good.
Evian, Fiji, Volvic Aquafina, Chevron	Produce ‘Purified water’ of public water source	(Negative)   Manipulated customer’s view.
Flint hills resources	Main producer of PET	(Negative) Caused death and diseases among people living near the refineries.
Curbside recycle	Recycle system for plastic bottle	Attempt for cleaner society by reuse
National Association for PET Container Resources	Asserts that production of PET keep all the safety guidelines and are safe to use	(Negative) Caused death and diseases among people living near the refineries.
state air pollution agency	Investigate on air pollution
government	Investigate on air pollution   Make sure that people’s health and security being kept by making sure that companies undergo proper investigation of products
U.S Department of Health and Human Services – Food and Drug Administration	investigate on whether the bottle is safe. Regulation of quality of water bottle, Regulate products that move from state to state
Natural Resources Defense Council	Investigation on water waste, protect natural resources Promote awareness	(Positive) Awareness on water issue increased. Fighting against big firms to protect natural resources
NAT COORD., Defending Water For Life Alliance for Democracy
Municipalities

 

4) Ecosystems/landscapes

 

Ecosystems/Landscapes	Impact (Positive / Negative)
Air Lake Field Spring Fish Birds Sea Shore Beach Humanbeing	NEGATIVE

 

4)Summary

 

The film documents how big bottled water companies brings the product to the customer. While talking about the process of mining, processing, packaging as well as the legal rights associated, the film asserts that the whole system is controlled by big firms that fools customers and exploits the people living in the community where water is mined and processes. I believe that the film is not biased as the facts are documented through investigation, researches and the true life stories of people whose lives has been damaged.

As a huge water drinker, I have always thought that bottled water was overprized in US. For I cannot ‘afford’ all the water I drink, I use filters at home and bring with me a tumbler to drink water from it. However, from time to time, I had to buy bottled water from outside when I could not bring tumbler with me. The reason why I bought them was out of thinking that they are one of the safest options for water. However, after seeing the film and realizing all the toxins I was drinking, I was shocked and got furious. The product was not only deceiving the customers with the ingredients but was exploiting the whole system by not paying the true cost. People in the village were suffering from water shortage and contamination and people living near oil refinery and PET factories were literally dying and suffering from diseases and decrease of house price. Moreover, customers were not only paying for the unhealthy, deceiving water but in fact helping this evil cycle without content nor realization. However, none of these things were being paid by the big firms. Even more shocking fact was the whole manipulation of customers’ mind with advertisements saying that drinking bottled water was safe and fancy and more water should be drank for the health. After seeing the film, I realized how ignorant I was in doing an action that is related to my life. While checking the ingredients of what I grocery shop, I was bluntly buying a water without thinking much about it. I thought that I should be critical and analytical even in simple actions like purchasing product for I can be a contributor of the whole cycle. For instance, buying a mass produced ‘cheap’ clothes with toxins without even looking at its ingredients maybe contributing to not only worsening my health, but the labor exploitation for the low cost, health of the workers who actually process the toxins, as well as the contamination of nature in processing the toxins. The action maybe simple but its butterfly effect may kill community and people. With the film, I started to think of how to be a good consumer as a student and how to make the unprivileged people a consumer as well when the options they should choose are unhealthy.  Moreover, I thought that I should ponder upon the notion of making healthy, sustainable product as a designer in the world where profit is prioritized.