Ask Congress To Eliminate Plastic Water Bottles From Our National Parks

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Dear Representative :

I call on you to co-sponsor the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act (HR 3768), which would reinstate our national parks’ policy for going bottled water free. The Trump administration recently rescinded the National Park Service’s voluntary guidelines for going bottled water free in spite of well-documented evidence that these policies were tremendously effective at reducing waste in our parks.

Our national parks stand as symbols of sustainability, conservation, and environmental education for the millions of park-goers that visit them annually. In order to preserve these lands, national parks across the country have gone bottled water free by phasing out the sale of bottled water and installing hydration stations for visitors.

According to a report commissioned by the National Park Service released last month,  twenty-three bottled water free parks alone prevented up to 111,743 pounds of plastic from being sold and discarded annually. The report found the policy “has significant positive environmental benefits that encompass the entire life cycle of [disposable plastic water bottles]”. This commonsense policy is a clear win for the environment, visitors, and our parks.

Despite these clear benefits, the Trump administration rescinded guidelines that outline how parks can implement these bottled-water-free policies. Eliminating this policy provides no benefit to park-goers nor to our national parks and threatens to reverse the progress parks have made on reducing their waste streams.

In response, Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-05) has introduced the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act (HR 3768) to reverse this decision and instead allow National Park Service regional directors to implement bottled-water-free policies  at their discretion after thorough feasibility studies.

As my representative in Congress, I am calling on you to stand up to bottled water corporations and co-sponsor Rep. Quigley’s legislation that protects our public lands and waters for the enjoyment of generations to come.

Thanks to the actions of people like you, national parks across the country have moved to eliminate bottled water and increase access to tap water, despite the bottled water industry’s attempts to interfere with this policy. A few months ago, weeks after Trump’s Deputy Secretary of the Interior--who has ties to water bottling giant Nestlé--was confirmed, the administration rescinded the policy that outlines how parks can go bottled-water-free. But, this is not the end of this movement in national parks.

We need to push members of Congress to reinstate the water bottle free policy to save our national parks.

Now, thanks in large part to the tremendous momentum built by Changemakers to preserve our national parks, Representative Mike Quigley (IL) has introduced a bill that would reinstate our national parks’ policy for going bottled water free. The Reducing Waste in National Parks Act (HR 3768) sends a strong message to the Trump administration and the bottled water industry that we will not stand for this rampant corporate interference.

Sign this petition to send a letter to your member of Congress now. Ask them to stand up to the Trump administration and the bottled water industry by co-sponsoring this bill!

Participating Organizations:

Corporate Accountability

Daily Kos

Food and Water Watch

League of Conservation Voters

Story of Stuff Project
Plastic Pollution Coalition

Photo credit: Ken Lane/(CC BY-NC 2.0)