The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has long been a leader in the fight for a cleaner, greener, more equal world that puts people and the planet before profits.  Today, on March 22nd, we are happy to celebrate World Water Day. We affirm that quality, quantity and access are the cornerstones for a healthy society- and that goes for everything from clean water to jobs in the green economy.

In the United States alone, we consume approximately 500,000,000 bottles of water each week. Imagine that: while 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water worldwide, other people spend billions of dollars on a bottled product that’s no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.

To mark World Water Day, we are happy to share The Story of Bottled Water from our allies at the Story of Stuff Project. This new film employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the fast-paced, fact-filled story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

Watch the Story of Bottled Water here: