Student Action

UVSP turns on new water campaign

Gemma Karstens-Smith, January 28, 2010, The Martlet-- Over the next week, the UVic Sustainability Project (UVSP) project will launch their new, ongoing campaign, Think Outside the Bottle.

“Water is something which is all too often taken for granted, and really shouldn’t be. While we are wholly dependent upon it, it is far from infinitely available,” said Lisa Federspiel from UVSP. “Indeed, in many parts of the world the struggle for water has already begun and the threat of the global ‘water wars’ is already looming large.”

The campaign began with UVSP tabling by Petch fountain earlier this week. In addition to providing passer-bys with information on water issues, the booth also had performance art and water tastings. On Jan. 27, the group hosted a screening of Flow, an award-winning documentary on the world water crisis.

The kick off will also include a lecture on Thursday, Jan. 28. Speakers include Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance, who will talk about preserving the purity of local water, and Tony Clark, who will talk about the privatization and commodification of water. The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. in room D150 of the Bob Wright Centre.

“We wanted to start [Think Outside the Bottle] because we felt that students needed to be informed about the social, political and environmental impacts of bottled water,” said Clementine O’Farrell, one of the campaign’s organizers.

The group also hopes to emphasize the high quality of Victoria’s water, which UVSP says is the purest in Canada.

“Our tap water is better than anywhere,” said Mike Vasilev, another Think Outside the Bottle organizer.

“They’re [tap water and some bottled water] taken from the same watersheds and tap water goes through a more rigorous process, so it’s even better,” said O’Farrell.

Vasilev adds that buying water costs exponentially more than getting it out of the tap.

“Taken together, our tap water’s high quality and its ridiculously cheap price, buying bottled water is absolutely absurd,” he said. “When you pay $2.25 for a 591ml bottle of water, you are paying over 3,000 per cent more. That’s a lot to pay for some plastic.”

Think Outside the Bottle is also trying to show students that, aside from being expensive, the plastic also creates a huge amount of waste.

“One person making the choice to buy a bottle of water, and the subsequent energy needed to break down and recycle that bottle may not make much of a difference, but one person is never alone,” said Vasilev. “At UVic, about 280,000 bottles of water are sold each year — and that does not include all those bottles which are bought off campus.”

The group is currently planning other projects for the campaign, including installing new water fountains in buildings.