The Privatization of Water

After watching videos and reading articles on the privatization of water around the world, I have formulated my very own opinion on the topic of water privatization. In class we had the experience of watching videos like Blue Gold and Flow, while at the same time we read articles like "The New Oil" and "Making Water a Human Right Might not be such a Good Idea." Overall I find the privatization of water a horrible and frightening thing that is happening in our world. The fact that a company, like nestle, or a person can just own the supply of fresh water anywhere and just bottle it up, slap logo on it, and sell it to whoever is dumb enough to actually buy water that they can get for free somewhere else. During the videos we watched in our class we also learned that before the privatization of water there was usually a local system that was set up to provide everyone with water. These local communities usually had a clean source of water provided through a local well, lake, etc where there was absolutely no problem with how their local systems were working. After the privatization of water occurred big companies came in to these local villages and forced the people to get their water from them, forced the people to close all their water resources, such as their wells, and than practically packaged the same water they had before, which was free, packages it up, and sells right back to them. This is completely ridiculous as a company can just enter any area nearby a clean natural water source and completely ruin not just the water cycle by removing the water from the area,  but also completely destroying the wealth, if you can even call it that, of all the people who live by the water source. Through the privatization of the resource of water, big bad companies like nestle have completely gone over the line by destroying a perfectly balanced system that was already in place to begin with. In summary these are the reasons why the privatization of water is one of the most horrible things that this world has allowed to happen.

Nu2u Community Service

During my time in The Senior Capstone class at Saline High School I have been completing my community service hours at a second hand retail store called Nu2u. At Nu2u people donate cloths and objects that they have no need of anymore and we take those donations and price them to sell again. Nu2u is also a non-profit organization where all profits are donated to the local schools in the area. In their first few years open Nu2u has collected over 35,000 dollars and had given it back to the schools. For the Senior Capstone class we are required to gain 60 hours of community service until the end of the school year. So far I have worked 10 hours at Nu2u and 11 hours working on the Haiti promotional video that I made for the class for a total of 21 hours of community service out of 60 hours.The pictures below show me working mostly in the back room at Nu2u. In the backroom its here that we collect all the bags of donations and then we sort through the bags for the goods that are of better quality and then we sort those goods based on what they are (books, toys, clothes, electronics, etc.) by putting them on the back shelves. From the back shelves they are priced and then put out on display for customers to buy at low prices. Don't worry though, for what we don't put on our shelves we recycle for 15 cents a pound. So all those unusable articles of clothing are recycled to make new clothing. We put all the bags that are for recycling in a small black trailer outside of the store, every week a man takes the bags for us. Recently we are getting ready for the Christmas season. We have received numerous miscellaneous donations of Christmas things that seem to fly off the shelves. We have also been putting up lights, trees, ornaments, and other things that are all up for sale. And that's how Nu2u functions and works as a nonprofit organization.

(The front of Nu2u, where all the magic happens!)

(We're getting ready for the Christmas season. I proudly helped put those lights on that tree up front.)

 (Welcome to the back room! This is where I spend most of my time at Nu2u. This is where all the donations are sorted and put on the huge back shelves to be priced. As you can see there's really only enough room for about one person walking back there.)

(This is the black trailer where we take all the recyclable bags full of clothing and books that we leave for pick up. As you can see it fills up pretty quickly.)