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Viewpoint: Take back the tap

by Trish Cocksedge At the City of Powell River’s committee of the whole meeting September 6, a recommendation was put forward that bottled water continue to be sold at city facilities and civic events and that the funds to purchase one water bottle f

by Trish Cocksedge At the City of Powell River’s committee of the whole meeting September 6, a recommendation was put forward that bottled water continue to be sold at city facilities and civic events and that the funds to purchase one water bottle filling station be included in the 2013 budget.

Continuing to sell bottled water, when excellent tap water is so readily available, runs counter to both Powell River’s Sustainability Charter and to the direction in which an increasing number of cities and businesses are heading. While the councillors agreed that bottled water needs to be phased out and Councillor Debbie Dee noted that she would like to see bottled pop also phased out, a time limit of three to four years was suggested. I think that we can and must do better than that.

The use of plastic water bottles is a manufactured demand. The vice-president of Pepsico said publicly that the company’s biggest enemy is tap water. Ironically, Pepsico’s Aquafina is taken from a municipal water supply. Despite the “healthy hydration” advertisements, water in plastic bottles is not the healthiest of choices in communities such as ours. Plastic water bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This is a plastic polymer derived from oil. If you were to fill one quarter of a plastic water bottle with oil, you would be looking at roughly the amount used to produce that bottle. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that the energy used to pump, process, transport and refrigerate bottled water is over 50 million barrels of oil annually.

Recycling is promoted. However, according to Dave Hillis, chief operating officer of Redleaf water bottling company located in Chilliwack, 74 per cent of water bottles are not recycled. They end up in landfills and oceans. He stated: “To put this situation in perspective, a 12-foot by 12-foot room is being filled from floor to ceiling every 74 seconds with empty water bottles.” Recycling in BC is much better than in most places, but even here between 34.5 and 44.8 million PET water bottles were not recovered in 2007. No recycler in Canada uses recycled PET in its beverage containers. Virgin PET is needed each time to manufacture a new bottle. Producing PET bottles of water sold in BC in 2007 and transporting them to market generated between 12,932,578 and 16,766,604 kilograms of greenhouse gases.

Where does the water come from to fill these bottles? It can be straight from a tap or it can come from an aquifer such as the one in Guelph, Ontario which is being depleted at the meagre cost to Nestlé of $3.71 for each million litres it draws. Nestlé also draws water in Hope, BC.

Over three years ago, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities passed a motion urging municipal governments to phase out bottled water on municipal property. It is time to expedite this process.

Powell River citizens are clearly ready to embrace environmentally sound practices as illustrated by the successful zero-waste goal at Powell River’s Sunshine Music Festival.

It is time to take back the tap.

Trish Cocksedge, resident of Powell River, is concerned about a sustainable environment.