Reporter

Our lakes and rivers are drying up. The dried land looks like scabs on Earth. The drought hit us hard, making water that much more valuable.

Even in times of severe drought, water companies are still pumping large amounts of water to sell at a huge profit for themselves.

Most of the water they sell comes from tap water, the same water from your sink.

Nestlé and Pepsi-Cola have made huge profits from sources of fresh water that communities also depend on.

Despite having an expired permit to pump water in California, Nestlé does not feel like this is wrong. They are stealing our water and not a damn thing is being done about it.

According to Kate Taylor at Business Insider, Nestlé recently outbid a small town named Centre Wellington, Ontario over a well of water.

The small town wanted to buy this well to ensure their citizens had a guaranteed water supply that was safe from commercialization.

Politicians such as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne have called for a bottled water reform after news broke of the well’s purchase by Nestlé.

Legislation needs to happen to protect the people from corporations and allow cities to stockpile water.

This does not account for the effects that making plastic and drinking from plastic has on the community and personal health.

Generally, five-gallon bottles are terrible for storing water due to the plastic often leaching Bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor, into the water that can be harmful if ingested.

If you drink from these, switch to glass or BPA-free plastics.

Concerned about harmful materials used to store water, CSU Bakersfield art major Josh Brandenburg said “How could [manufacturers] use harmful chemicals that can go into our water and food and still be legal to distribute it to everyone? How is this legal? It is ridiculous.”

Manufacturing plastic has been linked to cancer.

People who live next to a manufacturing plant have a higher rate of cancer.

In a 2012 breast cancer study by BioMed Central, it was suggested that women exposed to plastic fumes had a 400 percent increase to breast cancer.

Stop drinking from plastic bottles and drink from refillable glass bottles.

We as humans do not take care of our waste well, especially with plastics.

Much of our plastic ends up either in the ground or around a turtle’s shell.

Creating one-time use bottles is a waste of time and resources because they just end up as pollution most of the time.

The corporations create all this potential waste and never look back on it. They put the blame on the individual instead of creating a biodegradable plastic.

All for profit.

We are in a bad drought and are running out of fresh water.

Legislation needs be passed to prevent these companies from being able to exploit the local water supply during a drought.

We need to stand up for our community to stop water exploitation

The next time you drink from a water bottle, just think of the people who have been doomed from the company that took their water and are killing them with plastic manufacturing.