The bottled water industry is pressuring Congress stop the National Park Service's plan to ban sales of bottled water and reduce litter. Click here to tell Congress to Buck the Bottle and keep these national treasures pristine and clean.

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When the National Park Service realized that their trash cans were overflowing with plastic bottles, they quickly moved to stop selling bottles in vending machines and offered free water refilling stations instead. But the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), a lobby group that includes Nestle, bank-rolled Congress into considering a pro-bottle bill.¹ If it passes, national parks would be prohibited from banning the sale of plastic bottles.

Zion National Park, Utah, has eliminated over 5,000 pounds of plastic from its waste stream, in just one example of this success story. But IBWA has spent over $500,000 to lobby Congress and keep the bottles flowing.² They can afford it too, since bottled water profits soared over $13 billion last year in the U.S. alone.

But that water isn't all good for our planet. In addition to the litter, the plastic bottles are made from oil, A LOT of oil. In fact, in 2006 it took the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil to make all the plastic bottles consumed that year. That's the same oil consumption as one million cars.³ Even worse, the majority of the bottles don't get recycled: 69 percent end up in landfills or as litter.

That's why we're teaming up with a coalition of groups, including the Sierra Club and Courage Campaign, to keep plastic bottled beverages out of our national parks. Will you tell your lawmakers to protect our parks and buck the bottle?

Big Water and their allies in Congress are trying to fool and, in some cases, scare the public. Congressman Keith Rothfus (R-PA), even implied a ban on bottles could threaten families when he said, "With temperatures topping 100 degrees at the Grand Canyon, the bans could put families at risk of dehydration."⁴

The irony here almost makes me thirsty. Rothfus, a known climate denier, is basically acknowledging that climate change is making the Grand Canyon hotter, and then arguing that the best way to protect people from it is sell more oil-produced plastic bottles. We know that argument is, well, plastic. But we need more members of Congress to get the message that we're not going to sacrifice our parks for Big Water profits.

Click here to tell your lawmakers to stop plastic and Big Water from bottling up our national parks with pollution.

Thanks for all you do,

Anthony and the Environmental Action Plastic Prohibition Crew

1. Peters, Adele. The Bottled Water Industry Is Fighting To Keep Plastic Bottles In National Parks. Co.Exist. July 20, 2015.

2. Rein, Lisa. How Big Water Is Trying To Stop The National Park Service From Cleaning Up Plastic Bottles Fouling The Parks. The Washington Post. July 13, 2015.

3. Lohan, Tara. We´re Drinking Ourselves To Death: The Alarming Numbers Behind Our Bottled Water Addiction. Salon. September 19, 2015.

4. Poon, Linda. Who Wants Disposable Plastic Water Bottles In National Parks? City Lab. July 21, 2015.

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