Community & Labour Action

Canada: SD42 considers banning plastic bottles of water

The Times; with files from Canwest News.

The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school district is considering banning the sale of water in plastic bottles due to their environmental impact, but a contract for vending machines with bottled beverages in the district's high schools will most likely continue until 2012.

School board chair Cheryl Ashlie said the B.C. carbon tax, the environmental impact of the bottles and the health of students prompted the district's nutrition committee to discuss the subject.

"We have to look at every aspect of our practices, including our purchasing," she said. "But clearly the water bottle discussion is on the table."

Stepan Vdovine, a trustee for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, said he is concerned about his district's ability to extricate itself from its vendor contract with the Coca-Cola Company, and how revenue lost after the contract is cancelled might adversely affect students.

"My contention is that programs of importance to students' development should rely on solid funding provided by the board [and] not on sales of carbonated beverages or water," he said.

Vdovine, who has long been opposed to vending machines in schools, asked for a copy of the district's contract with Coca-Cola, but was told he couldn't have it because it was confidential.

He plans to ask the school board to support a motion to file a Freedom of Information request to get a copy of the contract at tomorrow's board of education meeting.

The contract is between the School District Development Association and Coca-Cola and contains a confidentiality clause. The association includes the Mission school district and SD42, and its board includes the chairs of both school boards and the secretary-treasurers of both districts.

"It's ridiculous -- we sell bottled water in our schools when we have water fountains," Vdovine said. "That's why I want to see the contract."

Vdovine wants to know what the district's contractual obligations are, the length of the contract, what conditions there are pertaining to the level of sales and what the district's right is to end the contract.

However, Don Woytowich, district secretary-treasurer, said other people have put in FOI requests and have received information that was partially blacked out.

Woytowich added that both SD42 and the Mission school district would like to get out of the contract, but the legal advice he has received indicates it's too difficult and there's "no clear way to do it."

"The work involved to feed the monster is more than anyone anticipated," Woytowich said.

The contract ends in 2010 but Coca-Cola can extend it to 2012.Because of new nutritional guidelines, the school district cannot sell soft drinks that contain high amounts of sugar. Woytowich said this has caused vending machine sales to "plummet."

School districts and municipalities across Canada have already moved to ban the sale of bottled water from their schools.

© Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times 2008