–COMMENTARY–
by Diane Holmes and Clive Doucet
We have built a world for many generations now without counting the environmental costs: think fracking and pipelines. Changing is going to require different expectations, different attitudes (more local, less international), better insulated homes, more neighborhood farmer’s markets … the list is a long one.
There are, however, some issues which are very easy to understand and very easy to act on. Bottled water is one of them.
Water from the tap, instead of in plastic bottles, is just fine and has no extra charges. So why not use tap water instead of water bottled in plastic? This is where it gets complex.
We don’t do it because bottled water makes immense amounts of money for some very large international corporations. (The Coca-Cola Company posted a $30 billion profit sheet last year.) These corporations have enormous budgets and cities have always been financially fragile. (Cities get eight of your tax dollars but deliver more than 60 percent of your services.)
Following, you will find the ABCs of why corporations are so successful in selling bottled water.
A. City water is safer: The City of Ottawa’s tap water is tested many times a day. Municipal tap water is rigorously tested and tested more frequently for more elements than bottled water.
B. City water is healthier: Ottawa’s water includes the minerals calcium and magnesium that are naturally occurring in the water. Bottled water has demineralized the water therefore making the water less healthy.
C. City water is less expensive: a plastic bottle of water can cost up to 1,500 times the cost of a glass of tap water.
D. Recycling in Ottawa is a sham: It is estimated that overall only 50 percent of plastic water bottles are recycled. The City of Ottawa has one of the lowest records for recycling in the province of Ontario. There is little money to promote recycling in the city budget. We need single-use plastic bottles removed from the environment.
E. The City does not promote its own tap water: The City budget for water is $95 million per year. Of that annual budget, $10,000 is spent on promotion materials for city water. If you add staff time, the amount goes up to $100,000. So the reality is there is so little promotion of city tap water, it doesn’t register in the minds of the people who pay for it — you.
F. Selling out to Coca-Cola: In 2010, the City removed several million dollars from the Recreation Department’s budget and told the department to go and find private sector dollars to fill in the gap. The suggestion was made that they could procure naming rights and pouring rights. Not surprisingly, there were no companies interested in naming swimming pools, baseball diamonds and gyms. But Coca-Cola was happy (over the Public Health Department’s objections) to secure the contracts for pouring rights in city community centres.
We now have Coke and Pepsi dispensing machines conveniently located at City Hall and in our community centres.
There are two more years left in the contract for Coke and Pepsi. In that time, 360,000 more plastic bottles will be sold. Where will they end up? In our landfills, streams and rivers, and some will float to the ocean.
We can easily live without Coke and Pepsi vending machines in our city facilities. We have in the past and can do so again. In summary, the sale of water and sugared liquids in City facilities is no longer in the public interest.
We need single-use plastic bottles removed from City buildings in order to reduce the use of bottled water and have less plastic in our garbage trucks and in our environment.
Let’s stop selling bottled water in City facilities.