THE BOTTLE SCAM: Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights – Plastic Plague Pt. 5

THE BOTTLE SCAM – EcoJustice Radio connects the dots between the Plastic Water Bottle Scam and the fight for Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights. This is PART FIVE of a special seven-part series, called, “The Plastic Plague: Connecting the Dots between Extraction, Inequity, and Pollution.” Check out Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 6 – Part 7

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Our guests include Stiv Wilson, Co-Director of @peakplastic and Creator and Producer of the film, The Story of Plastic [https://www.storyofplastic.org/] and Raven Stevens, Board Member of W.A.T.E.R. (We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review) [http://cawater.net/]

Since we recorded the episode, Stiv’s team won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Documentary for The Story of Plastic. And Raven Stevens and W.A.T.E.R. were instrumental in forcing Crystal Geyser, after years of advocacy and lawsuits, to pull out of their plans for a water bottling plant in Mount Shasta.

The chain of environmental and social impacts is an embedded cost of bottled water in plastic, a resource that is supposed to give us life, but now arguably the process to extract, make, ship, store, and dispose seems to take from it.

Clean, reliable, and free water should be available to all. Companies want us to fear our tap water and sell us “solutions,” increasing our dependency on bottled water by providing something that was once free, but now costs us $2k times more. That isn’t a surprise when Pepsi has been quoted saying, “the biggest enemy is tap water.”

With a ½ billion bottles used and disposed of every week in the United States, while land and water resources are stolen and polluted it is time to close the tap on the Bottle Scam. The solution isn’t as easy as switching over to a reusable water bottle.

STORY: Bottles And Cans Recycling: A Social Contract In Peril

Stiv Wilson, is an award winning activist, filmmaker, and educator working at the nexus of marine conservation, plastic pollution, petrochemical production and human rights. After completing 35,000 nautical miles sailing the world to study marine plastic pollution, Stiv co-authored the first ever global estimate of the abundance of plastics in all of the major five oceans in the peer reviewed journal, PLOS ONE. Stiv is the Co-founder of Break Free from Plastic [https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/] and Creator and Producer of the film, The Story of Plastic.
Website: https://www.storyofplastic.org/
Twitter https://twitter.com/AgentStiv
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peakplastic/

STORY: Social Equity in a Zero Waste Baltimore – National Zero Waste Conference

Raven Stevens is a Water Protector and Community Advocate, living in Mt. Shasta, California. She is working with W.A.T.E.R. (We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review) and the local community to stop industrial water extraction in and around Mt. Shasta. Raven Stevens is a spokesperson for the Gateway Neighborhood Association and representing W.A.T.E.R. for this interview. She plans to keep up the fight to prevent Crystal Geyser from harming the mountain and all life downstream.
Website: http://cawater.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mtshastawater/

Raven does not speak for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. They are a sovereign Nation and speak for themselves. They can be reached at: https://www.winnememwintu.us/ for further information.

Jessica Aldridge, co-host of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She has worked for 15 years as a Zero Waste professional, a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and is a recipient of the inaugural Waste Expo 40 Under 40 award.

Hosted by Jessica Aldridge
Engineer: Blake Lampkin
Executive Producer: Jack Eidt
Producer: Georgia Tunioli
Show Created by Mark and JP Morris
Music: Javier Kadry
Episode 62

Photo Credit: Cuyahoga Recycles

Updated 8 October 2021