Community & Labour Action

City to dump bottled water: North Shore News

Benjamin Alldritt, North Shore News

Published: Sunday, July 19, 2009

Plastic water bottles will soon begin disappearing from the City of North Vancouver's municipal buildings following a council vote Monday to phase out the containers.

In their place, the city aims to provide more glasses and carafes inside public buildings, and more drinking fountains outside.

"I think everyone understands at this point that the use of plastic bottled water is an environmentally unsound practice," Coun. Bob Fearnley said. "And we have been paying more than for an equivalent amount of gasoline. It's outrageous."

Monday's vote brings the city into line with Vancouver, Burnaby and Delta and answers calls from both Metro Vancouver and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Both groups recently voted to encourage their members to switch to tap water.

The Metro Vancouver resolution notes that the region's drinking water is strictly regulated and tested more than 25,000 times each year. Bottled water, which can cost up to 2,000 times more than tap water, is often also sourced from municipal water systems. In addition to the wasted money, the Metro resolution says residents are also stuck with literally millions of plastic bottles, most of which end up in the region's over-stressed landfills.

The city is calling on the North Shore Recreation Commission, North Shore Neighbourhood House, the North Shore Office of Cultural Affairs, Capilano University and North Vancouver school district to follow suit.