Bottled water like smoking?

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if drinking water from a plastic bottle was as socially unacceptable as is smoking today?

How much less landfill would we need if we just drank from a reusable bottle? I’m not saying to stop drinking water, just be conscious of the consequences of our actions. Cities recycle around 3,600 tones of the one -use bottles each year. Towns would recycle less, but of those bottles, 30 % are water bottles or 1,000 tons! There are 65,000 water bottles in a ton or 65 million bottles a year. But just how many bottles are tossed in with the regular garbage because there is no recycling available in stores, companies and even on the street? It is estimated that 35% of all water bottles, land in garbage bins, which land in landfill! Do the math! We are dumping more plastic bottles in landfill sites than we are recycling!

Why do we persist in drinking bottled water? Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians and the senior adviser on water to the president of the UN general assembly, accuses, the industry of building distrust in tap water.

The bottlers point to Walkerton! Yet, in the last decade Ontario has legislated into affect some of the strongest legislation to protect water in the world!

As we swill back that bottle of water, and 3 in 10 households in Canada do so, we are burdening our cities with the high cost of coming up to the Provincial water standards. We are fortifying a 50 billion dollar a year industry, when in fact our tap water is held up to higher standards than this industry. If we turned on the tap and filled a reusable bottle, we would be supporting us!

That 10 dollars it would cost a month to drink tap water, would go to lowering the debt load of our municipal or city water department! In turn we could see our taxes reduced because they would not have to budget in the extra costs of supplementing lost revenue, from us drinking bottled water.

Our vanishing water supply in southern Ontario could be slowed, if only we used reusable bottles. The industry’s drain on our water supply costs them nothing except for the $750 to $3000 permit that they get easily from the Ministry of Environment. Water bottles are a thriving pure for profit industry. While the rural areas and farms their systematically drain water from, suffer the consequences of their actions and in turn the cities, as farms fail and food prices go up.

On March 11th 2010 the Polaris Institute, Canada Federation of Students and Sierra Youth Coalition are introducing Canada’s first Bottled Water Free Day. They want to take action and mobilize Canadians on campuses and the general public to take action to ban the bottle and reclaim public water.

Such courage should be supported for this first Bottle Free Day ! If you want more information visit www.bottledwaterfreeday. ca. I salute them for their insight and courage.

It will not be easy, but these young people should be supported. They are stepping up to the plate to save our water, could we do less?

Sharon Yovanoff

Researcher ROSSCORE