“Nestlé Waters has a comprehensive sustainability plan in place, and has gone on the record in Chaffee County that it is committed to the long-term health of the springs, conservation of land and water resources, and protection of the environment.”
This quote was posted in the Salida Citizen by Nestle Waters North America. (Nestle Waters: For the Record, March 14th 2008). I question the comprehensive sustainability plan of a company who will produce over 490 million plastic bottles a year from the Nathrop spring alone.
This is not a company concerned with the environment. This is a company who takes pure spring water and turns it into garbage. If our County Commissioners are honest in their assessment of this project, they can rest assured that it does not fall within the guidelines of the 1041 permit.
Read about the massive amount of waste plastics produced each year in America and the fallacy of recyclable plastic water bottles.
Thanks Laura. It sometimes takes a visual impression like this to bring us in touch with reality. If images like these don’t shock us, then we are as good as dead.
Nestle is talking about the possibility of branding the spring waters to our County or region. They believe that we will perceive this as a benefit. I would perceive that as a HUGE LIABILITY.
Laura, thanks for the visual. But what will they really look like strewn along our roadways and floating down our rivers?
Not only is this a huge amount of plastic, but that is a whole lot of water!!
This is even worse than I imagined. Thank you for communicating this concept so well through your illustration.
Great visual! Keep fighting! Your words are being heard.
thanks laura. hey is there anyway to take that shame visual and project the amount of oil involved in same project.
Nice graphics-thanks! Following the water and the numbers……
It would require 150,000 kilowatt/hours of largely coal-fired electricity per year to pump the water to Johnson Village. Next, 561,470 gallons of diesel fuel per year would be needed to get the water tankers to the Denver bottling plant.
In Denver 387,920 barrels of oil per year would be needed to make the make the PET bottles, (about 1/4 as much oil as bottles hold). It also takes about twice as much water to make/clean bottles as they hold (add 400/acre ft/year).
Finally, the filled bottles are transported with, yes more diesel fuel, to where they are sold throughout the western states. Finally, they are hauled home in SUVs, consumed, and almost 90% are not recycled. The empty bottles are hauled to landfills with-yes more diesel fuel, buried with Dozers (still more diesel fuel) to hang out for thousands of years.
This project will produce 1.2 million bottles per DAY that end up in landfills, road ditches, and waterways. The project will bring Nestle about $61.4 million per year in gross revenues. That explains why Nestle is spending so much money on lawyering, “localwashing”, “good-neighbor washing” and “greenwashing”.
This sure clarifies some of the wording being used. While legal matters rarely reflect matters of conscience, the Chaffee County we all believe in won’t stand aside while rights on paper defy logic at large. Nice work bringing this forward Citizens. This is the easily digestible version that can reach many, many minds.
E-Mail sent to the Chaffee County Commissioners 04/10/09:
Dear Commissioners:
In light of the recent hiring of new consultants to address the subject of economic impacts to the County and to study the relation/interaction of the wetlands and the aquifer, it seems highly advisable to table any consideration of the Nestle project until such work is completed and the results thoroughly analyzed by the Commissioners and the voting public. A continuation of at least 120 days is recommended for this minimum basic science.
I applaud this body for taking the time to consider both the prospective “benefits” as well as the certain costs to determine what is best for the future of Chaffee County. I hope that the consultants work also takes into account the environmental impact and carbon footprint of extracting the water, transporting and bottling, as well as producing and disposing of the many millions of plastic bottles that this project will create. Bottles that have been shown recently to contain cancer-causing agents.
Is this an incidental liability that Chaffee County can afford to be a party to? Remember – when people sue, they come after ANYONE who has had a hand in a transaction.
This is such a joke!!!! If anyone thinks that all these bottles will end up strewn all over chaffee county you need to open your eyes. Maybe we should be more concerned with the new golf courses that are going in. Look at all the wasted water there will be to keep the grass green not to mention the wildlife habitat that will be lost so a few people can go hit little white balls all over the place. Lets take a look at all the water wasted in town so people can water their sidewalks trying to keep their lawns greener than their neighbors. We are also complianing about one more truck an hour on trout creek pass. BIG DEAL!!! Yet nobody seems to care about all the traffic and environmental damage that will be caused in the canyon by the “over the river project”. But oh wait there wont be any cause it is all in the name of art. Maybe someone should draw a cool looking graphic of all the damage that will be done with that project.
CB this wasn’t supposed to provoke your anger, this was just a graphic to represent the amount of waste generated by a corporation who claims a sustainable presence. I think many people are concerned with a myriad of issues in the valley. This article was about Nestle. It’s not just about “us” anymore, it’s about the impact we have as a community on our neighbors and the world. Those plastic bottles may not be strewn all over Chaffee County, but they’ll be strewn all over somewhere. My question merely asked IF we were responsible for the waste generated by Nestle could we even consider this project.
I don’t condemn the work you are doing on Over the River, in return, I hope you can respect those of us who are trying to stop Nestle. Nothing is a joke, it all matters.
Responding to CB – all that “wasted water” on golf courses, etc. goes back into the ground. Nestle takes is away, forever!