iD Ideas Discoveries March 2017

BOTTLE COST

?

THEDARKMACHINATIONSOFTHEWATER

DOES THIS

HOW MANY LI

T

ry this thought experiment:

Imagine that a corporation

sets up a new headquarters

in your city. Gigantic factory

facilities and warehouses are built,

which require new workers, and a

fleet of tractor-trailer trucks is ready

andwaiting.Thenholesare dug into

the ground—very deep holes, more

than 300 feet deep, reaching far into

the soil. The workers are searching

for something. But what could it be?

As soon as all that comes out of the

faucets and showerheads in your

home is a brown, stinking brew, you

will know what the corporation has

been digging for: water. After a short

time the indispensable commodity is

once again made available to you—

packaged in PET plastic bottles for

1,000 times its former price. You can

buy the water in the supermarket—

from now on, that’s the only source.

Is this an absurd scenario? In the

U.S. water is still characterized as a

public good and therefore it cannot

be completely privatized—at least,

not yet. But in many other parts of

the world this scenario has already

been part of people’s everyday lives

for a long time...

It’s 6:01P.M. in Doornkloof, South

Africa: Lawrence picks up a freshly

packaged bottle of water, then he

starts making his way home from the

Nestlé bottling plant where he works.

He must walk through a long tunnel

that runs underneath the highway.

Above him thunder the huge trucks

that are driving away from the plant,

which are loaded with water bottles

that he has just filled. On the other

side of this tunnel lies the workers’

camp: wooden huts, portable toilets,

trash heaps. At home his children all

reach for his 0.5-liter bottle of water. >

Moulana Usman Baig

All India Imams Council

“Water is life.

Robbing people of

this natural resource

is nothing less than

murdering them!”

Mar 2017 28 ideasanddiscoveries.com

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