THE BOTTLE SCAM: Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights - Plastic Plague Pt. 5 - Ep. 62

EcoJustice Radio

Plastic Plague Series: PART 5 (of 7) THE BOTTLE SCAM - we connect the dots between the Water Bottle Scam and the fight for Land, Water, and Indigenous Rights. Our guests include Stiv Wilson, Co-Director of Peak Plastic 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/] The chain of environmental and social impacts is an embedded cost of bottled water, 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. After seven years of controversy, Crystal Geyser Water Company announced in May 2021 that it had given up on opening its Mount Shasta facility. Raven Stevens advocacy was a big part of this massive victory. 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/ 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 kept up the fight and prevented Crystal Geyser from further harming the mountain and all life downstream by stopping their Mt. Shasta project. 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. Hosted by Jessica Aldridge from SoCal 350 and Adventures in Waste [http://adventuresinwaste.com/] 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 22 September 2021