Vancouver to Ban Bottled Water in Parks: Coke Is It!
Vancouver is jumping on the “ban bottled water bandwagon.”
Vancouver city council voted Thursday to immediately eliminate bottled water for staff and council functions and eventually take it out of city concession stands.
The bottles will be phased out of all municipal facilities over the next few years. The move is meant to reduce environmental costs, cut solid waste and battle greenhouse-gas emissions.
“It’s really important that we have people move over to tap water, which is the best water you can get,” Coun. Tim Stevenson said Thursday night.
“It’s not necessary to use bottled water, and we’re trying to find alternatives for people and that, of course, will include other kinds of containers.”
City staff will look at ways to increase access to tap water on city properties and to increase the number of water fountains in Vancouver.
[CBC]
Hmmmm .. water fountains – buzz bishop on FlickrAs I’ve said before, banning the sale of bottled water is a backasswards approach to the problem.
The original decision to ban the sale of water was based on the pollution caused in the manufacture and delivery of the packaging.
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.
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.
Educate people that the water is safe. Create a “drink water” campaign to rival the likes of the Gatorade ads. If the city is so proud of their water, they need to treat the purchase of bottled water as a behaviour that needs to be changed, not one that needs to be banned.
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.
When I go and visit a city, I carry a bottle of water around with me as I walk and tour the town.
If the municipalities get their way, visitors who want to hike around Stanley Park won’t be able to buy a bottle of water to carry on the trails. But they will be allowed to buy a Coke.
How does that make any sense?
In a time when we’re encouraging our schools to ban junk food, we’re encouraging our parks to sell junk drinks.
The real question to pose to the City, the Park Board and Mayor Gregor Robertson is: Are you going all Marie Antoinette on us by saying Let them drink Coke?
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Does this mean they will provide free tap water at the concession stands instead? The least they could do is revamp those water fountains. Some of those are just nasty!
Just DM me when plastic garbage bags are also banned.
The water fountains are disgusting. The photo above was taken at David Lam Park this spring. They just leave them turned off all winter/spring without regard that people in this city are active and could require refreshment.
Tap water is not healthy. Flouride was first introduced into water during the Nazi concentration camps with the intention to dumb down the prisoners. Contrary to popular belief flouride actually rots teethe. The introduction to of flouride into tap water serves no other purpose than to dumb down society. This is only one ingredient used not to mention the rest of the crap we drink in tap water. Bottled water is full of ingredients you can’t read so bottled water is tainted too.
Stainless Steel water bottles are coated with chromium. Is mining chromium any greener than plastic water bottles? How green is GREEN? http://www.goodguide.com
I agree. I saw this “How Green is Green” article in Metro today: http://www.metronews.ca/halifax/comment/article/218115
Well said. Think about schools. The vending machines -which used to provide revenue for extracurricular items – will have what in them? High calorie juice? Macs and 7-11 are in for a real boost in sales. What if I’ve left my house without my urban survival kit of shopping bags, water bottle and coffee cup? I’m not putting my lips or filling my (now emply Dr. Pepper) bottle from water for any fountain. I’m leary of filling my bottle from the washroom tap at my gym for pete’s sake.
And what are we supposed to put into our emergency kits? The pre-packaged water is safe to store for long periods of time.
Shake your heads. PC sometimes means Pretty Crazy idea that hasn’t been completly thought out.
fluoride is the main ingredient in rat poison.. it lowers your IQ and cause brain damage just to mention a few… how can they say that tap water is good to drink?? What planet are these people from? Or maybe they are believers in eugenics.?? unbelievable… they give us a bogus excuse that the fluoride is good for a our teeth??? come on sheeple wake up!! they are up to no good… and they don't care anything about any of us…
BS.. get your head out of your aaa and do a little research about tap water…. they are poisoning us and we are so slow we think its great…
Albert Schatz, Ph.D – “Fluoridation … it is the greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated and it has been perpetrated on more people than any other fraud has.”Professor Albert Schatz, Ph.D. (Microbiology), Discoverer of streptomycin and Nobel Prize Winner
Dr. Charles Gordon Heyd – “I am appalled at the prospect of using water as a vehicle for drugs. Fluoride is a corrosive poison that will produce serious effects on a long range basis. Any attempt to use water this way is deplorable.” Dr. Charles Gordon Heyd is the former president of the American Medical Association
this thing really builds up easily…
vancouver tap water has NO FLOURIDE!rnrncheck the side of your favorite water bottle….if it said FLOURIDE ION 0.3 PPM thats rn0.00003%rnrnor about 1/30 of a single drop in a 1L bottle of water rnthis may seem to be insignificant but over time this poison can and will cause you harmrnBE WARNED
vancouver tap water has NO FLOURIDE!rnrncheck the side of your favorite water bottle….if it said FLOURIDE ION 0.3 PPM thats rn0.00003%rnrnor about 1/30 of a single drop in a 1L bottle of water rnthis may seem to be insignificant but over time this poison can and will cause you harmrnBE WARNED
vancouver tap water has NO FLOURIDE!rnrncheck the side of your favorite water bottle….if it said FLOURIDE ION 0.3 PPM thats rn0.00003%rnrnor about 1/30 of a single drop in a 1L bottle of water rnthis may seem to be insignificant but over time this poison can and will cause you harmrnBE WARNED
vancouver tap water has NO FLOURIDE!
check the side of your favorite water bottle….if it said FLOURIDE ION 0.3 PPM thats
0.00003%
or about 1/30 of a single drop in a 1L bottle of water
this may seem to be insignificant but over time this poison can and will cause you harm
BE WARNED