Council sidelines request to ban bottled water sales at facilities, events
Last year, the city took two of the three steps needed to become a “Blue Community.”
The first two steps were recognizing water as a human right and committing to promoting publicly owned and operated water and wastewater services. Last night city officials heard from Nancy Carswell and the Council of Canadians, who urged the city to take the final step by banning the sales of bottled water at city facilities and events when tap water is available.
“It is not acceptable that four litres of water is used to make just one litre of water,” Carswell said at Monday night’s executive committee meeting. “It is not acceptable that bottled water drains us of 2,000 times the energy of tap water.”
While all council members agreed on the negative environmental impacts of bottled water, they were hesitant to ban its sale.