Student Action

Students to town: Kick the plastic bottle habit

Group lobbies Lunenburg for ban in all its buildings
By BEVERLEY WARE South Shore Bureau
Sat. Mar 28 - 5:28 AM
LUNENBURG — A group of Lunenburg high school students wants council to ban plastic bottles at town-owned facilities.

The students are so intent on their mission they have formed a group called Drop The Habit. The five students from Class Afloat and one Lunenburg high school student have made T-shirts, established a blog and gave a PowerPoint presentation at town council this week.

"The movement is already a success in many places," said Clare Buchanan, of Class Afloat. "It can be effective if you just put some effort into it."

(Class Afloat is a private college in Lunenburg for grades 11 and 12 and first year university. Students spend at least one semester learning seamanship on a tall ship.)

Nicole Boyance Uribe told town councillors the group’s goal is to increase awareness of the environmental impact of bottled water, and to encourage the town to adopt a policy banning plastic bottles in facilities it owns or operates. The ban would include drinks sold in vending machines. The students already have a petition with 100 signatures.

Ms. Buchanan said everyone has a basic right to potable water and to assume otherwise is "an affront to human dignity."

A nine-ounce bottle of water costs, on average, $1.50, said Ricarda Heagar, which would amount to $20 a gallon. "Would you pay that for gas? That’s a pretty high price."

She said Americans spend up to 10,000 times more money on bottled water than tap water.

The Natural Resources Defence Council tested 103 brands and Ms. Buchanan said it found "there is no guarantee it is cleaner or safer than tap water."

Indeed, a study at the University of Calgary found toxic chemicals, including cancer-causing agents, leak into liquids when plastic bottles are reused.

And then there’s the environmental impact. The students said 80 per cent of the 28 billion plastic bottles bought in the U.S. in 2004 ended up in a landfill. And they said it takes 1.5 million tonnes of plastic to make those bottles each year — plastic that is made from enough barrels of oil to power 250,000 homes.

According to the social action think-tank Polaris Institute, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued 29 recalls of bottled water between 2000 and 2008 and seven public warnings because of pathogens or arsenic in the water.

Mayor Laurence Mawhinney believes the town only sells plastic bottles from the canteen and vending machine at the town-owned rink. At the behest of the school board, the town had replaced soft drinks at the arena with water and juice, but they are still sold in plastic bottles.

The Canadian Federation of Municipalities has asked its members to consider such a ban, which Mr. Mawhinney said makes the request timely. Metropolitan Toronto has already implemented a policy.

"It’s on our agenda. We think we need to look at it more closely," the mayor said. Council will discuss it next month.

In the meantime, the students say they will consider taking their message to other Lunenburg County municipalities if they get a favourable response from Lunenburg.

( bware@herald.ca)