The Water Bottle Project
This website is still a brainstorm in progress. We still need to find cheaper ways of sending water and find recipients willing to receive and distribute water. Please read the following and then contribute in our forum.
Purpose:
To start a campaign to have a large number of people send a bottle of water to Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and other water-starved countries. To use the surplus of water and income in rich countries combined with the existing mail infrastructure to distribute water to water-starved people.
Advantages:
Low Effort. Mailing water may be as simple as labeling a bottle of water, buying postage, and dropping it in a mailbox. No memberships, volunteering, or meetings are necessary.
Hands On. Not efficient but you know exactly where your money is going. The only overhead goes to the cost of distributing the water.
Immediate Results. The water would arrive within days. Since this is a temporary solution, no frustration, disheartenment or feeling of uselessness commonly felt from the depth of long term projects would occur.
Safe Water. A third of the people in the world don’t have access to clean water. By buying sealed bottled water we know this water is safe.
FAQ
How does this project work? You buy a bottle of water (from anywhere) and print out a mailing label and customs form from this site. (We are also looking into buying and printing postage on this site.) You wrap the bottle of water in paper and tape using the instructions on this site. You look up the cost of mailing it in our database, and you buy the appropriate postage. You tape on the postage and mail the water.
Is the project anonymous? For the most part, yes. One possible idea is having each label printed with an ID and this website address printed on it. It would be possible to fill out your name or comment on this site associated with that ID. If a person who receives that ID somehow has internet access, they could look up the ID and if you’ve volunteered any information, they could contact you or leave you a message.
If I have an opened bottle, can I refill it with tap water and send it? Unfortunately, no. Although tap water has more federal safeguards and is safer than bottled water, non-factory sealed bottles of water are likely to leak and ruin not only the postage and label on the bottle, which would cause the bottle to fail to be delivered, but also the surrounding mail in the mail system. Please do not send opened bottles of water. Please also do not send chilled bottles of water, which condense and destroy the label and postage. There is also the issue of liability with opened bottles of water – while we trust that anyone sending water donations would make sure it’s safe, the advantage of sending unopened water is that it has been legally tested and purified by the companies that bottled it.
Is it dangerous to send water in the mail? Not if it’s factory sealed. Water bottles are made with hard plastic and are meant to be distributed without leaking. The labels provided on this website will have "LIQUID" markings in compliance with the post office.
Isn’t this wasteful? Yes. The plastic used in this project is inefficient and damaging to the environment. The plastic sent to these countries may be reused but is almost definitely not recycled. However, the waste generated from people drinking this water in other countries is no different from the waste generated from people drinking it here. The entire bottled water industry is extremely wasteful.
Isn’t this inefficient? Highly. The cost of sending a bottle of water is about fifteen times what it costs to buy locally, and bottled water as a commodity is more overpriced than gasoline. However to a thirsty villager in a water-starved country, water is inaccessible whether it’s 20 miles away or thousands of miles away.
The advantage of this project is that you don’t have to travel thousands of miles to deliver the water that’s closest and most efficient. You don’t have to find a water source and find a villager that needs it. You don’t have to test the water to make sure it’s pure. And it’s hands on. You don’t have to pay someone to do any of those things.
Yes, there are better charitable uses for your time and money. Please consider purchasing a well kit for a village or donating to UNICEF’s Water and Sanitation programs. Perhaps a next step would be finding a distributor closer to the target countries that can remotely sell and ship water closer for much cheaper than sending it from all over the world. While that is a more efficient option, this project is about a hands-on approach to get people involved. It’s unlikely that acting as another organization asking for your money will generate the same interest that a hands-on approach would, at least initially.
This is a bare minimum of charitable work you can do, but it can save lives. Yes, the world would probably be a better place if we all donated more money directly to charitable organizations or devoted more of our time to volunteering. You are encouraged to do so. But recognizing that the world is not a perfect place, this is an easy, hands-on way to help.
Isn’t this capitalist? Kind of. It isn’t typically capitalist to try to rectify injustice, to donate or to have empathy for fellow humans. However by participating in this project you are contributing both to the bottled water industries and to the post office. You’re being a consumer and an activist at the same time. Capitalists and activists rejoice.
How can I help? We are looking for contacts and addresses of people and organizations that will accept in-kind donations and distribute them on a volunteer basis to water-starved communities, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. We are also looking for ways to lower costs or ideas to make this project better. Please contribute in the forum!