Global Campaigns News

Canada: Short debate on bottled H2O

SurreyLeader.com

The tap versus bottled water battle is on in Metro Vancouver.

If common sense prevails, this should be a short-lived war, because when it comes to making green choices, tap water wins hands down.

The single-use plastic water bottle is a monumental waste of non-renewable resources, and it’s bad for the environment – both in terms of its manufacturing process and as garbage when it’s not recycled.

The statistics present a watertight argument.

An estimated 26 million bottles of water are bought in this region every year. About seven million plastic water bottles a year end up in local landfills without being recycled.

A quarter of a bottle of oil goes into the plastic and the energy required to form it and truck it to market, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing the bottle uses more water than it will eventually hold – for every one-litre bottle, five litres of water is used to cool the plastic during production.

And even if all plastic bottles were recycled, even more energy would be required to convert them to other uses.

There is nothing “green” about plastic water bottles.

Many consumers of bottled water say they are concerned about the purity of tap water. That may be justifiable in some areas of the world, but not here.

In fact, this region has some of the best tap water on the continent. Piped from high mountain reservoirs, Metro Vancouver tap water is of the highest quality, and is continuously tested, filtered and treated for contaminants.

It’s the last process, chlorination, which causes many buyers of bottled water to maintain they don’t like the taste or smell of tap water.

There’s a simple solution. Let tap water stand in a container in the refrigerator, and the chlorine will evaporate.

Ultimately, this all boils down to aesthetics and preference, at the expense of the environment.

It’s an attitude that must change.

People in industrialized nations have a growing realization that the choices they make are having a significant impact upon the planet.

A few decades ago, recycling was virtually non-existent. The vast majority of trash went into landfills. Chemicals were handled carelessly. Inefficient manufacturing processes were trumped by profit objectives.

No longer. Now most urban cities divert a large percentage of waste into recycling initiatives. Strict regulations exist in terms of emissions and environmental practices.

Mankind’s undeniable complicity in global warming and climate change has given rise to previously unimaginable government action plans, such as taxing carbon emissions, and heightened political and public pressure upon industry to adopt greener practices and products.

Even the ironclad icon of modern industrialization – the gas-guzzling automobile – is becoming a pariah.

To be sure, skyrocketing petroleum prices are key in changing attitudes, particularly in respect to transportation.

That aside, however, countless other processes, practices, activities and luxuries are all being scrutinized and questioned in this dawning age of awareness.

Much of what was environmentally harmful, but accepted only a handful of years ago is now banned, abandoned, ostracized, or at least under serious review.

The bottled water issue is presently in the last category.

It needs to move up to the first or second, in short order.

To that end, the regional district has set a new target to cut bottled water consumption 20 per cent by 2010. A campaign is being prepared to persuade residents to turn to tap water.

We applaud that initiative, and appeal to the consumers of bottled water to do so only in this fashion: Buy a reusable bottle and fill it from the tap.