The Fiji Water company has shut down production after a government imposed tax hike. Image by Verne Equinox/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY

The Fijian government has caused production of Fiji Water to shut down. A drastic hike in taxes on extraction of the water from Fiji for use in bottled water products was announced, causing the shutdown. Fiji Water has been implicated in corruption.

Fiji Water shuts down to avoid drowning in taxes

The government of Fiji raised taxes on companies extracting water from Fiji, prompting Fiji Water to stop production, according to Mother Jones. Fiji Water, a high end brand of artesian water, is a favorite of middle- and high-income connoisseurs of bottled water. The tax hike, from a third of a cent to 15 cents per liter extracted, was not a universal raise in the tax assessed on extracting water, but only companies that bottle 3.5 million liters, or about 930,000 gallons,  or more of water per month. The Fiji bottled water brand is the only such producer in the Fiji islands. The president of the Fiji Water company, John Cochran, said that the tax was “discriminatory.”

Bottling company in hot water with government

Before the tax hike the Director of External Affairs for Fiji Water, David Roth, was deported from Fiji back to the U.S. No charges or formal accusations were made, but Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said that “as usual Fiji Water has adopted tactics that demonstrate that Fiji Water does not care about Fiji or Fijians.” Fiji Water has been exempted from paying corporate income taxes in Fiji and trademarked the name “Fiji” in overseas countries. The circumstances behind Roth’s deportation order aren’t entirely known, but the acting Prime Minister Ratu Ganilau resigned in protest of the deportation order, handing the government over to Voreqe, aka Frank, Bainimarama.

New bottlers may move in

The tax on the Fiji bottled water company effectively puts the company out of business there, though it appears that there may have been improprieties. Prime Minister Bainimarama, involved in coups d’etat in 2000 and 2006, has said he will start looking for other companies willing to extract the water for export.

Sources

Mother Jones

The Times Square suspicious package was a wild goose chase, but understandable. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Just days after a failed bombing attempt by Faisal Shahzad, a Times Square suspicious package scare caused the evacuation of Times Square by police. The bomb squad was called in to investigate, and traffic was redirected around Times Square.  The package was found near the Marriott Marquis Hotel. The package was just an unattended bag, so there’s no need to get a personal loan for a bomb shelter quite yet.

Times Square suspicious package innocuous

The New York City Police Department brought bomb squad officers in to investigate the suspicious package in Times Square.  The parcel in question was a small, non-plastic, white cooler left unattended, near the Marriott Marquis, near 45th street and Broadway.  The package was reported by a street vendor, and upon investigation by the NYPD, the package was found to contain nothing dangerous, according to the New York Post. The evacuation has been called off.

Times Square suspicious package bottled water

According to the Washington Post, all that the cloth cooler contained was bottled water. Granted, bottled water doesn’t explode, but it could cause the normal person to explode with anger when they realize how much they overpay for it.  (Believe it or not, a fair amount of water bottlers actually use municipal sources – that’s tap water!) Come to think of it, considering what they make the bottles out of, and considering bottled water has less stringent standards than tap, maybe the suspicious package in Times Square was harmful after all.

You aren’t paranoid if they really are out to get you

Though this incident could easily be chalked up to sheer paranoia and may seem laughable, recent events would easily make for an atmosphere conducive to paranoia.  I’d think the same thing, too.  The intersection where the package was found was the same block where Faisal Shahzad’s ticking Times Square car bomb was discovered.  Thankfully, he was totally inept at bomb making. Though this seems a bit of a mountain made out of a molehill, the reality is that unfortunately, an ugly and odious air of Fear and Loathing is setting in. One wonders if we shall ever get a reprieve.

The Story of Bottled Water, a short film released by Anne Leonard on World Water Day, intends to put a dent in bottled water sales. Flickr photo.

The Story of Bottled water is a short film by Anne Leonard that she released Thursday, which was World Water Day. In The story of Bottled Water, Leonard shows how corporations have convinced Americans to spend extra cash on half a billion bottles of water every week though most people in this country can get it for free. “Purified” bottled water has become a $5 billion-a-year industry in the U.S. and ironically threatens public health and the environment.

World Water Day

In an article on huffingtonpost.com, Anne Leonard said she chose World Water Day to release the Story of Bottled Water because World Water Day is:

“a good day to pause and consider the insanity of a global economy where 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water while other people spend billions on a bottled product that’s no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.”

In The Story of Bottled Water, Leonard compares spending money on bottled water to buying a shrink-wrapped sandwich made by unknown hands costing $10,000. She blames multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns commissioned by industrial giants like Coca Cola and Pepsi and Nestle to make Americans afraid to drink tap water.

Toxic chemicals in bottled water

The Story of Bottled Water points out that while people may think they are drinking purified water, it is often no safer than the water coming from the tap. It could also be less safe. Toxic chemicals from the plastic in the bottle can leach into the water inside. A report on mindfully.org states that Water bottles are made from various plastics, including Bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical that leaches into the water in the bottles to some degree. Bisphenal-A, it turns out, is a hormone disruptor that mimics estrogen and is linked to early onset puberty, declining sperm counts, obesity and breast and prostate cancer. In March 2007 a billion-dollar class action suit was filed in Los Angeles against five leading manufacturers of baby bottles containing Bisphenal-A.

Filter water at home

Leonard says that bottled water costs up to 2,000 times more than tap water, yet up to 40 percent of bottled water is simply filtered tap water. Consumers can filter water at home with products costing anywhere from $15 to $120. The Story of Bottled Water lists many other facts about bottled water that Leonard calls “inconvenient truths:

• Bottled water is subject to fewer health regulations than tap water.
• Municipalities often need money loans to cover more than the $70 million it costs to landfill water bottles alone each year, according to Corporate Accountability International.
• Making the plastic water bottles used in the U.S. takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars, not including the fuel required to transport the bottles from the factory.

Use metal water bottles

The Story of Bottled Water does see a bright side it its argument, however. Leonard says that fewer people spend money now on bottled water — sales fell slightly in 2009 for the first time ever. More consumers choose to filter water at home,  pass on bottled water at the store and carry reusable metal water bottles. Steel or aluminum water bottles cost anywhere from $5.95 to $19.95. Sure beats a $10,000 sandwich.