Let Them Drink Coke
The decision by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to encourage it’s members to stop selling bottled water has stirred up debate.
The resolution is set to “phase out the sale and purchase of bottled water at their own facilities where appropriate and where potable water is available; and That municipalities be urged to develop awareness campaigns about the positive benefits and quality of municipal water supplies.”
THEY GOT IT HALF RIGHT
Let’s encourage people to drink from the taps. It’s fresh, it’s “free,” it’s clean, it’s healthy and it’s readily available.
But banning the sale of bottled water just removes a healthy beverage from the shelves while replacing it with one that’s not. The Federation of Municipalities should start up a campaign to promote the health of the supply and how we should all make the switch to tap from bottle. Although I’d be interested to see how the campaign would be received in Walkerton, On.
Banning the outright sale of bottled water from all municipal sites and services is akin to banning all bags from grocery stores.
A HUGE campaign educating people to bring reusable bags to the store has had a dramatic effect on the way we shop from groceries now, but the plastic bags are still there.
Can you imagine if ALL plastic bags were banned from grocery stores and you were forced to A) buy a canvas bag each time you forgot your plastic or B) carry your two dozen items in your hands to the car? That’s unfair.
IT’S STILL HURTING THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID
The decision to ban the sale of water was based on the pollution caused in the manufacture and delivery of the packaging.
“In an era when the world is dealing with the impacts of climate change, the bottled water industry requires massive amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport its goods.”
However, it takes the same amount of energy and contamination to the environment to ship a bottle of pop to the store. They want to ban water sales because of the plastic bottles, yet Powerade, Coke, Iced Tea and others will fill the shelf space once taken by the water.
And don’t give me the water fountain argument. This is the one I saw at David Lam Park in Yaletown this afternoon. It doesn’t work, and I’m guessing it hasn’t worked for a while.
Would you want to drink from this?
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So I guess when it comes to the availability of water in the City of Vancouver, the Parks Board would prefer to say “Let them drink Coke.”
The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?
The water fountains get turned off in the winter — I think it’s concern about freezing pipes, but there is no water available from them during our runs til about April. Vancouver, UBC, Burnaby, North Shore is all the same.
Like I said on your Twitter, I agree that banning water will not eliminate plastic bottles, it will simply promote other beverages. There has to be a better solution!
glad to know that i am not along in writing about plastic issues, just because it affects the health of all humanity as well as pollutes the environment.
yes it is nasty and until people understand that money does not equal good. the companies can continue to justify their bottom line and we are the mutated product of their experiments.
i study health. it is hard enough to stay healthy without the lies that companies design. to use up oil in the fifties, the r/d people in the 50’s came up with plastics. have you seen a cbc doc on how plastic was invented. the show made me livid as well as sick to my guts. big business from the days of the ‘mad men’ days, created the mess we are in now. it will be our kids that will have to suffer the ramifications.
i am doing my best to not be the ostritch, head in the sand. it is really a tough hill to climb but really there is no other path to go now. there is a finite end to the whole equation. as a mother, i have to do my bit to keep the information flowing.
thanks Moneca. I did attack BPA in baby bottles pretty hard last year.
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/10/17/canada-first-in-world-to-take-action-against-bpa/
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/05/29/canned-food-has-more-bpa/
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/05/12/the-ultimate-bpa-safety-checklist/
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/04/24/have-you-gotten-rid-of-your-bpa-baby-bottles/
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/04/17/baby-bottle-manufacturers-as-bad-as-big-tobacco/
http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2008/04/16/what-to-do-about-bpa-bispehenol-a/
and if you end up using the wrong refillable water bottle, guess what you end up with?
i still think banning the water bottles creates a serious health risk with a minimal environmental benefit.
i am a dealer in ionic alkaine water filters. i sell a system that is the best that i have found. i drink only from glass bottles. i would stick my head under a water fountain or tap rather than drink from plastic bottles. i think that my body knows dirty water better than plastic water. still the chorine and florides are poisons that are dumped into the water systems to prevent bacterial issues so i don’t drink from taps too often.
i have been doing this for a year now. until i got this system, i was drinking from a reverse osmosis system, using a nalgene bottle for over 10 years. i was so disappointed that i wasn’t doing the best for myself but i had the information that i had then and now i have the information that i have now.
it is better to have done my best and when given the best for now, change.
it is hard enough to fall into the present pleasures but eventually we all pay a price for too much of a good thing. sugar leads to diebetes, meat leads to chorestral and plastic leads to xenoestrogen endocrine. too much sex in the wrong places leads to std. etc.
what to do? do your best to figure it out.
ps, there is a plastic waste dump the size of two texases or the size of western europe floating in the ocean. every bird, fish and turtle in the ocean are full of plastic pieces that will interfere with their digestive system as well as their reproductive system.
so every piece of fish we eat now has plastic contaminants as well as mercury toxins. it is an incidious cycle. untill we can educate people to not just throw their trash into the street, we must do what we can to educate them that this has consequences. just as cigarettes were taught to be unhealthy, we must teach that plastics are also unhealthy.
as for your comments on the sport drinks that are still on the shelf…when they can pipe that stuff through into a fountain like willy wonka and the chocolate factory, we must start with the water. people must realize the money that is made from making them diabetics, first for the cola companies then by the medical as well as the pill maker companies.
be well, take care.
@Pool88 they need to leave the water fountains on year round. too often they’re broken or inoperable when i’m doing my runs.
I’ve been thinking about adecuate policy designs to avoid exactly what Ryan is suggesting will happen (a shift from bottled water to soft drinks). Green taxation seems like a good enough recourse, but it merits further inquiry. If we had enough good water supply at facilities like parks and so on, I am guessing more people would be encouraged to drink water from the tap. The photo you included is quite graphic.
http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/globalshows/16×9/index.html
see the article on ‘the garbage patch’.
i will hunt down the doc on the evolution of the making of plastics.