Over a billion people lack clean, safe water. I personally encountered this issue twice. Safe water becomes wildly important in refugee encampments, which is one of my areas of interest. Not to put too fine a point on it, without it people will die of thirst, or disease will spread and people will die of something even less pleasant. In either case, we would have accomplished nothing in a well-meaning effort to rescue people from some other disaster. And when my children were traveling more or less alone in very rural Mexico, kid #1 got sick from the water and had to be taken care of by kid #2; both were fairly unsettled by the experience. When kid #2 became seriously frightened and found a way to call home, we discovered that my passport had expired (THAT will never be allowed to happen again, I assure you) so DH had to go rescue them.
So... water. It's not just about hydration, either. It's about sanitary systems and watering the crops so that people can eat. It's even about local autonomy and self-determination, since access to water has been known to be restricted by hard-hearted powers-that-be. Access to clean water is threatened by pollution, by international conflict, by drought, by disaster, by over-crowding.... Thinking too hard about the situation can become disheartening.
So, a few nights ago I was at a meeting held at Starbuck's. I'd already had about a thousand cups of coffee that day, so I opted for the Ethos water that they sell. A small (but to their credit, non-zero) percentage of the sale price goes to support clean-water projects around the globe. But how much, what for, and how effective? And more generally, how much do these corporate donation programs change any situation? Ethos water costs $1.80 and a nickel of that price is donated to clean water projects. Would my nickel be better off sent directly to an agency that works to create clean water for villages somewhere in the developing world? Or, for heaven's sake, give the clerk the whole $1.80 and drink arguably safer water from the tap.
The first random thought that occurs to me is that I don't see how it could ever be the right idea to use bottled water. For the privileged among us (everyone reading this blog, in other words), tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water. So it's more likely to be safe. Moreover, something has to happen with all those water bottles. Sure, we recycle them, but wouldn't it be better not to use them in the first place? And it takes resources to produce the bottles -1.5 million barrels of oil each year, according to the Earth Policy Institute.
On the other hand, Ethos has a target goal of raising $10 million over 5 years. That's not chump change, if they've had the sense to partner with programs that use appropriate technology and train local people to maintain and operate the equipment. And it looks like they've done a fairly good job of that so far. And there's something -although I'm not sure how much- to be said for making activism accessible. There is something slightly revolting about feeling self-congratulatory about helping someone when all you've done is drink over-priced designer water. Maybe activism ought to be more challenging than that.
Clearly I'm starting to go round and round here. How many "other hands" can a girl have? I do know that World Water Day is March 22, 2006 and I'd like to do something a little more important than "save water; shower with a friend". I'll be thinking about this issue over the next few days. Come with me, if you like!
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