Community & Labour Action

US: Botanic Garden does away with bottled water

Posted: June 20, 2008

Wilmette Life. By Eric Johnson -

The Botanic Garden is now tacking on another initiative to its green efforts, stopping the sale of bottled water to its patrons, a move they launched at their World d Environment Day June 5.

The Botanic Garden has ceased the sale of bottled water at its Glencoe home -- hoping to chip away at the $8.25 billion gallons of bottled water people in the U.S. consumed in 2006 -- replacing the plastic with refillable corn-based, biodegradable cups and water distribution points, said Steven Bell, Director of Sustainability for the Garden.

Some patrons were surprised by the move, he said, but the "overall response has been positive," and that in general "people recognize what message we are trying to send and are thrilled to see that the Garden has made this decision."

He explained that it is an effort to conserve energy, reduce waste, and commit to "ethical practices."

In 2007, the Garden sold over 96,000 bottles of water, according to officials there and stopping will help reduce the upward trend of bottled water consumption.

In the past decade, North American sales of bottled water tripled; in some regions consumption of it outpaces coffee, tea, apple juice, and milk, according to prospect.org.

Bell said this is a huge problem for the environment.

"Manufacturing, shipping, recycling and disposing of bottled water uses an enormous amount of energy and creates unnecessary waste," Bell said.

Making bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a whole year, according to the New York Times, and it takes two gallons of water to purify every gallon of water used to fill water bottles, according to internal Botanic Garden research.

"And, since the Chicago area has some of the cleanest and best-tasting tap water in the country, we decided that it doesn't make sense to buy bottled water that is shipped from various places around the world."

Not all bottled water is purified and FDA guidelines on bottled water are less stringent than their imposed guidelines on tap water. Also, bottled water comes from tap water sources 25 percent of the time.

Visitors can purchase reusable water bottles at the Garden and will also have easy access to free, clean local water at the Garden Cafe and at the drinking fountains throughout the property.

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