The Olympics start tomorrow. And if reports are to be believed, the water is so bad in Rio de Janeiro that just three teaspoons from the iconic Gloria Marina is enough to get infected with a serious virus.

Floating garbage, human feces and dead animals litter the coastline of the host Olympic city and concentration of adenoviruses have spiked 42% since just one year ago. The two most contaminated spots are the venues for rowing and sailing. It will be bad for athletes, of course, but for Rio’s six million inhabitants, it’s business as usual.

The Olympics’ corporate sponsors are thrilled to get the kind of exposure the Rio Games will deliver -- but they’re not too keen on fixing any of the social problems such an event brings. The fact is that Visa, Coke, Samsung and McDonalds are complicit in this filthy Olympic legacy.

Tell the Olympic sponsors if they want to profit off the Games, they have to pay their fair share of Rio’s infrastructure needs.

The Olympics provide a huge opportunity to get real change. Some of the world’s most powerful corporations -- Visa, Coke, Samsung and McDonalds -- sponsor the games. These public-facing brands don’t want to be associated in any way with raw sewage lining the harbour. When Russia introduced horrible anti-LGBT laws in advance of the Sochi Olympics, millions of us spoke up. If enough of us do it again, we can put massive pressure on these corporations to actually do something.

A billion-dollar investment in Rio’s waterways was part of Brazil’s Olympic bid -- its most important legacy. But it’s gone AWOL. Olympic sponsors will sell millions of phones, credit cards, soft drinks and hamburgers because of the games, but they don’t want to contribute to the infrastructure of the city that makes all that profit possible.

We’ll see all these corporations channel the unique and vibrant Brazilian culture -- especially its beaches -- to sell their products. But the truth is ordinary Brazilians can’t swim in them. If corporations want to profit off Brazilian beaches, the least they can do is help clean them up.

Will you join us and ask Olympic sponsors to clean up Rio’s famous waterways?

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