Category Archives: Story of stuff

Save our planet – Stop Nestlé from taking our water and wrapping it in plastic

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Dear Readers,

Nestlé thinks it can buy its way to a positive public image. So the corporation is mounting a major misinformation campaign in Southern California. From billboards to newspaper spots to ads on popular local websites, Nestlé is scrambling to convince the people of California that it’s a good steward of the environment. But with your help, we can fight back with educational ads of our own, ensuring people know the truth: Nestlé needs to be stopped for the public good.

Our campaign against Nestlé is already making waves. On April 25th, I’ll be representing the more than one million members of the Story of Stuff Community in a federal courtroom as our lawsuit to hold Nestlé accountable for its unpermitted withdrawal of water from the San Bernardino National Forest goes before a judge. Along with with our partners Courage Campaign and Center for Biological Diversity, we’ll argue that the U.S. Forest Service should turn off the spigot on Nestlé’s continuing, illegal extraction of water from these drought-ravaged public lands.

But we know Nestlé won’t go away quietly, which is why we’re asking you to help us fund a full-page ad in the San Bernardino Sun newspaper to raise publicity about Nestlé’s illegal actions, and help more people get engaged.

Help us show Nestlé and the U.S. Forest Service that the public wants our water to stay in the mountains, not in Nestlé’s bottles.

Nestlé knows that the public support behind the Story of Stuff Project and our partners has the potential to put an end to its bad behavior, which is why Nestlé spends millions of dollars on vague advertisements claiming it has a strong environmental record. But the facts couldn’t be further from the truth. The water level in the stream from which Nestlé is taking water in San Bernardino is at 10% of a 90-year historic average, and similar abuses are occurring worldwide.

Nestlé’s ability to suppress public debate is powerful. In fact, a billboard company that operates near the San Bernardino National Forest refused to do business with us in part because they fear losing out on Nestlé’s advertising dollars. So we’re buying a full-page ad in the San Bernardino Sun that will reach tens of thousands of local residents to set the record straight.

It’s time to show both Nestlé and the public that citizens around the world stand in solidarity with local efforts to protect the forest and its water. Please help us fund our full-page ad.

Donate to help us fight back against Nestlé’s misleading advertisements with a newspaper placement calling out their abuses and explaining how people can join our campaign.

Our lawsuit and your pressure have already had a significant impact, persuading the Forest Service to begin reviewing Nestlé’s expired permit for the first time in almost three decades. As the date of our hearing approaches, our opportunity to curtail Nestlé’s illegal water grab in San Bernardino is at an all-time high. We know that millions of people around the world support our efforts, and we want to bring that message directly to San Bernardino, where Nestlé employees AND Forest Service officials charged with protecting this forest will see it.

With your help we can deliver our message in the most commonly read newspaper in San Bernardino. With enough funds, we’ll buy more strategic ad space elsewhere in the region. It’s time to set the record straight and let local folks how they can get involved in our global campaign to hold Nestlé accountable.

Preview the ad text on our donation page, and contribute to make it a reality!

Together we can show Nestlé that our planet’s people and ecosystems aren’t for sale. With the water level in the National Forest’s Strawberry Creek now far below historic averages, the plant and animal life that depend on the water don’t have time to spare.

Thanks to your support our campaign is growing, and we’re starting to see Nestlé react. We know that if we keep the pressure up, amazing change is possible!
Are you in?

Yes, I’ll pledge $10

Yes, I’ll pledge $25

Yes, I’ll pledge $50

Yes, I’ll pledge $100

Yes, I will pledge another amount

In Solidarity,

Michael O’Heaney
Executive Director
The Story of Stuff

Save our planet – Let’s send Nestlé a message

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Dear Richard,

California is experiencing its most severe drought in recorded history. Lakes and rivers are drying up, and cities are instituting water rationing. Meanwhile, Nestlé Waters’ bottling plants are operating at full volume, taking water from cities and National Forests alike.

Take Action, sign this petition.

Nestlé’s unethical actions are part of a trend – for years Nestlé has been working around the world to privatize community water resources, selling it back to people at significant markup and trashing our planet with plastic. It’s clear that Nestlé won’t change its practices without significant public pressure. But if enough people – and businesses – stand together to say “enough is enough,” we can start to change things around.

Sprouts is a grocery chain that operates 212 stores around the U.S., many of them in California. Sprouts says it cares about our environment – so why is it selling Nestlé’s unethically sourced Arrowhead Springs water? We’re organizing green retailers, starting with “sustainable” grocery chain Sprouts, to let Nestlé know that its refusal to conserve water is unacceptable.

With California drying up, the state can hardly afford to waste water. Tell Sprouts Farmers Market to stop selling Nestlé’s illegally sourced Arrowhead Springs water!

In one particularly egregious example, Nestlé is pumping water from the San Bernardino National Forest in California for their Arrowhead Springs brand using a U.S. Forest Service special use permit that expired over 25 years ago. The company pays only $524 each year to profit off of this public land. Legal pressure from The Story of Stuff Project and our partners at the Courage Campaign and Center for Biological Diversity has convinced the Forest Service they should begin to review the expired permit, but there is no reason public citizens should stand idly by in the meantime.

Nestlé is giving the people – and ecosystems – of California short shrift. It’s time to send a message to Nestlé that exploiting California’s National Forests for water is unacceptable.

Sprouts Farmers Market is a large company that cares about sustainability, stating “Responsible retailing for Sprouts is… partnering with suppliers and vendors to ensure that the products we sell are responsibly sourced; reducing waste and our environmental footprint.” Yet Sprouts carries bottles of Nestle’s Arrowhead Springs, the same water being taken unsustainably from the National Forest in San Bernardino!

Nestlé’s Arrowhead Springs is not a sustainable product – quite the opposite, in fact. Tell “sustainable” grocery chain Sprouts to stop carrying Arrowhead Springs today!

Selling Nestlé’s Arrowhead Springs water contradicts Sprouts’ principles of sustainable sourcing and minimizing waste. This is a product that is draining a unique ecosystem dry AND trashing our planet with plastic! If retailers like Sprouts refuse to continue supporting Nestlé’s bad practices, it will grab Nestlé’s attention and force the company to change.

Story of Stuff Community members who recently attended an organized hike with our Campaigns Director in San Bernardino, California want to launch a campaign calling on Sprouts to stop selling Nestlé’s Arrowhead Springs water immediately. In doing so they plan to impact Nestlé’s sales directly while also educating fellow public citizens who shop at Sprouts about Nestlé’s actions. You can help their great idea sprout by signing our petition today.

The truth is that Nestlé’s operations in California have worldwide ramifications, as does our response. While Nestlé makes millions of dollars exporting water from a federal drought disaster area, our waterways fill with plastic, and our ecosystems pay the price. If we’re going to live sustainably on this planet, we all need to pitch in and do our part.

Ask grocery retailer Sprouts to stop selling Nestle’s unsustainable Arrowhead Springs water today!

Thank you for all you do!

Emma Cape, on behalf of The Story of Stuff team

Source
Sprouts Farmers Market, Responsible Retailing

Save our planet – Our Water, Our Future – No to Nestlé

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Dear Readers,

If you’ve been following The Story of Stuff Project this last year, you probably know that it’s high time Nestlé changes how it does business. All around the world, Nestlé has been a leader in the effort to privatize our public water, and sell it back to us in little plastic bottles. But more brave communities are starting to fight back. One group in Cascade Locks, Oregon is doing something truly historic, and we need your help to spread their story.

The more people who learn about this campaign against Nestlé, the harder it will be to ignore. Nestlé puts millions of dollars each year into advertising, trying to convince people around the world that bottled water is good for people and our planet. Upon discovering that The Story of Stuff Project planned to release a new film about Cascade Locks, Nestlé even tried to preempt us by releasing a misleading video of their own. But we know the truth: a sustainable society and a healthy planet requires protecting water as a public right, NOT as a source for corporate profits!

We may not have Nestlé’s financial resources, but our community of a million supporters worldwide is a force to be reckoned with. With your help, we can spread this story even farther than Nestlé’s advertising dollars.

Will you help us share this story with your friends and neighbors?

https://www.facebook.com/storyofstuff/videos/10154741725385884/

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We’ve already gotten Nestlé’s attention; now we need to keep up the pressure. Nestlé thinks it can continue expanding its water bottling operations indefinitely, until public springs run dry and our oceans fill with plastic. We need to let Nestlé and communities know that a better alternative exists.

We’re standing with the people in Cascade Locks as they defend their community against the influence of Nestlé and other bottling corporations. Our demands are simple: we want clean public water for everyone, and we want Nestlé to stop bottling in communities like this one, where citizens are protesting the privatization of their resources. This Story belongs to everyone, and you can help write the ending. By sharing our new video, you can help us increase public pressure on Nestlé AND connect with more communities making a difference.

When enough people act together, we can change the way corporations do business – for the better. To challenge global giant Nestlé, we need your help growing this movement, from coast to coast and country to country.

Will you help spread the word by sharing the story of these brave changemakers’ campaign to defend their public water from Nestlé on Facebook?

Thank you for all you do!
Emma Cape, on behalf of The Story of Stuff team

Save our planet – Ho ho ho, Nestlé’s got to go!

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Here is another post from the people at “The story of stuff”. They are doing a great job and I want to share this with all of you.

Please have a read then take action!

 

This is an exciting time for The Story of Stuff Project. Last year, after nearly half a million people worldwide signed our petition calling on Nestlé to stop privatizing public water, we knew it was time to turn this Community’s passion into action. Since then we’ve seen these efforts pay off in a big way.

Thanks to support from Story of Stuff Community members like you, we made a film and filed a lawsuit to stop Nestlé from illegally pumping water from California’s drought-scarred San Bernardino National Forest. In doing so we grabbed worldwide news headlines and the attention of Nestlé Waters’ CEO Tim Brown, who reached out to our Campaigns Director to request a meeting.

In the weeks after we launched our campaign in San Bernardino, we heard from communities across North America that are fighting their own battles against Nestle’s water privatization agenda. From California, Oregon, Maine and Pennsylvania to British Colombia and Ontario, one thing has become crystal clear: these brave folks on the front lines of efforts to protect our public water need our support to hold Nestlé accountable.

Will you help us make a movie about the communities worldwide fighting Nestlé, so that their stories go viral until Nestle cleans up its act?

By talking to concerned citizens all over the world, we’ve learned a lot about how Nestlé operates. The company has interfered with local politics, aggressively tried to elect Nestlé friendly officials to change zoning laws, and even attempted to bribe townships with “community development funds” and donations of…yup, bottled water!

But while the communities fighting Nestlé on the ground are all too familiar with these tactics, there is a world full of Nestlé consumers who are unaware they’re supporting these bad practices. By telling this story, we can bring unprecedented visibility to these local struggles, and harness the power of public opinion — and our Community — to curb Nestlé’s unethical business practices.

We’ve already been in touch with two communities whose stories we think are worth telling:

Story 1: In Cascade Locks, Oregon, Nestlé has proposed to bottle over 100 million gallons of water per year from Oxbow Springs, a publicly owned water source in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Local activists and tribespeople have united together to defend this water, on which the region’s fishing, tourism and farming industries rely. These activists not only want to stop Nestlé from drawing water in the Columbia River Basin for bottling and sale, but to pass a law to stop all future water exports from their beautiful state, creating an example for people worldwide.

Story 2: In Kunkletown, Pennsylvania, dozens of local residents are fighting Nestlé’s attempt to draw hundreds of thousands of gallons of water daily from a well in the town for its Deer Park bottled water brand, a proposal they fear will permanently alter the quality of life. According to these residents, zoning laws have been changed to accommodate Nestlé without the proper degree of public oversight or comment. These residents want to defend their democracy against Nestlé’s interference, and we want to help.

Community members are excited to work with us on this project: “I’m thrilled that The Story of Stuff Project wants to make a film about our experience in Oregon,” says Aurora with the Local Water Alliance in Oregon, “The increased exposure from the film can help us win against Nestlé, and I hope that we can in turn show communities around the world how they can defend their local resources.”

Will you chip in to help give larger visibility to the communities fighting Nestlé, so that our movies result in real change in these communities and worldwide?

Thanks to the support of our Community members, we’ve accomplished great things this year. We’ve made two new movies that have inspired Changemakers to action. We’ve banned polluting plastic microbeads in California, and our national legislation is on the way to winning. We’ve also made real strides in holding Nestlé accountable for bottling water in National Forests during California’s drought, by launching a lawsuit with our partners from Courage Campaign and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Now with your help, we can make the holidays in the communities fighting Nestlé a little brighter by showing them that people around the world care about their story. With our support they can win in the fight to protect their public water against Nestlé, and inspire more people to get involved worldwide.

Whether it’s protecting watersheds in the drought stricken North American West, or working to protect small towns from corporate meddling, we’re building power and solidarity so that all communities fighting Nestlé’s water grab speak with one voice against corporate greed. By telling these important stories, we can create a movement like no other.

Are you in?

Yes, I’ll pledge $10

Yes, I’ll pledge $25

Yes, I’ll pledge $50

Yes, I’ll pledge $100

Yes, I will pledge another amount

Thank you for all you do!
Michael O’Heaney
Executive Director
The Story of Stuff Project

Save our Planet – Tell Nestlé Waters’ CEO to stop violating public laws

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Story of Stuff Project

Nestlé’s CEO says he cares what Story of Stuff Community members think.
Let’s tell him loud and clear: stop violating public laws to privatize our water!

TAKE ACTION!

Dear Reader,

When we announced that we were suing to stop Nestle from taking water in California’s San Bernardino National Forest during the drought, even Time Magazine couldn’t wait to get its hands on the story.

Now the US Forest Service’s deadline to respond to our lawsuit is less than two weeks away, and Nestlé is getting nervous. Initially, the CEO of Nestlé Waters North America, Tim Brown, was unfazed by public criticism of his California operations. Last summer, when a journalist asked Brown if he would stop bottling water during California’s record-breaking drought, he replied that he would increase it if he could. But outcry from The Story of Stuff Project’s global community of over one million members has begun to change his tune.

Following our petition calling on Nestlé to cease taking water from public lands altogether, Nestlé’s CEO responded to us directly:

“The feedback and constructive criticism that Nestlé gets from groups like Story of Stuff is important, even when we disagree. In fact, we have used input like this on many occasions globally to adapt our operations… One thing I would appreciate is some perspective on how we might do it better in the eyes of your constituents.”

Nestlé hoped to schedule a private meeting with our staff. But the truth is that the problems in San Bernardino are part of a larger pattern of Nestlé’s repeated disregard for public laws and resources. To ensure Nestlé receives the message that it’s time to change the way it does business everywhere, we think that Nestlé’s CEO deserves to hear from the public directly.

Will you join us in e-mailing Nestlé Waters North American CEO Tim Brown to demand accountability today?

Our demands for Nestle are simple:

  • Stop bottling water from the San Bernardino National Forest and other protected lands
  • Withdraw from all sites where communities are protesting the privatization of their water, including Cascade Locks OR, Kunkletown PA, Mt. Shasta, CA, Fryeburg, ME, and Vancouver, BC
  • Pay to cleanup the waste generated by polluting plastic products. Stop pushing the cost of cleanup onto taxpayers.

The water that Nestlé has taken from the San Bernardino National Forest since its permit expired is estimated at over 1,838,451,342 gallons. This water would cost a regular California citizen millions of dollars. Yet Nestlé has paid the government a fraction of that cost to bottle the public’s resources. The lawsuit filed by The Story of Stuff Project, Center for Biological Diversity and Courage Campaign has gotten Nestle’s attention in California, but public action is what will result in lasting, global change.

Join us now in responding to Nestlé CEO’s request for input, by sending him an e-mail explaining why you think water should be a public resource, NOT a source for private profits.

Thank you for all you do!
Emma Cape, Campaigns Manager, on behalf of The Story of Stuff team

Save our planet – Nestle pays next to nothing to take your water and make millions!

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Click on the words above “Save our planet – Nestle pays next to nothing to take your water and make millions!” to see this entire post.

In the midst of California’s historic drought, Nestle Waters—the largest bottler of water in the world—is drawing millions of gallons of water a year from the San Bernardino National Forest. Nestle’s permit to remove this precious resource expired in 1988, at which point the Forest Service should have turned off the spigot.

In this four-minute documentary, experts and activists explain the impact Nestle’s operation is having on the forest and demand that the company and our government ensure this shared public resource is protected for future generations.

Visit the folks at The story of stuff, who made this video here

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Nestlé’s permit to transport water through a pipeline across southern California’s San Bernardino National Forest expired in 1988. But the U.S. Forest Service, which is charged with ensuring public land resources are well managed, has bowed to pressure from Nestlé to allow the corporation to continue pumping water.

Every year, Nestlé has paid $524 to the Forest Service to operate its pipeline, nowhere near what the water it removes is worth. Nestlé then turns around and sells that water back to Californians and others in plastic bottles, making millions in the process.

And while California residents and businesses have significantly reduced their water use to combat the drought, Nestlé has refused to do its part. In fact, when asked if Nestlé Waters would consider stopping its bottling operations in California, CEO Tim Brown told KPCC public radio, “Absolutely not…In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”

Nestlé is feeling the pressure from the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who’ve spoken out through petitions and other actions. Now it’s time to up the stakes, and send a message to Nestlé’s corporate headquarters. That’s why we’ve filed suit: to force the Forest Service to stop Nestlé’s illegal operation and undertake a full review of its permit once and for all.

Save our planet – say no to Nestle privatizing our water

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This came to me recently and is important enough to share with you all.

Please take action and sign this petition.

Don’t let a private company take control of the world’s water.

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Nestlé is locking up local sources of water around the world, pumping them dry to get rich at locals’ expense.

Across the globe, Nestlé is pushing to privatize and control public water resources.
Nestlé’s Chairman of the Board, Peter Brabeck, has explained his philosophy with “The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.”

Since that quote has gotten widespread attention, Brabeck has backtracked, but his company has not. Nestlé is bullying communities around the world into giving up control of their water. It’s time we took a stand for public water sources.

Tell Nestlé that we have a right to water. Stop locking up our resources!

At the World Water Forum in 2000, Nestlé successfully lobbied to stop water from being declared a universal right — declaring open hunting season on our local water resources by the multinational corporations looking to control them. For Nestlé, this means billions of dollars in profits. For us, it means paying up to 2,000 percent more for drinking water because it comes from a plastic bottle.

Now, in countries around the world, Nestlé is promoting bottled water as a status symbol. As it pumps out fresh water at high volume, water tables lower and local wells become degraded. Safe water becomes a privilege only affordable for the wealthy.

In our story, clean water is a resource that should be available to all. It should be something we look after for the public good, to keep safe for generations, not something we pump out by billions of gallons to fuel short-term private profits. Nestlé thinks our opinion is “extreme”, but we have to make a stand for public resources. Please join us today in telling Nestlé that it’s not “extreme” to treat water like a public right.

Tell Nestlé to start treating water like a public right, not a source for private profits!
Thanks for all you do!

Emma Cape, Campaigns Manager, on behalf of The Story of Stuff team

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Sources and further reading:
Nestlé: The Global Search for Liquid Gold, Urban Times, June 11th, 2013
Bottled Water Costs 2000 Times As Much As Tap Water, Business Insider, July 12th, 2013