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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has taken the pledge and will not offer bottled water at its meetings or events where tap water is available.
Ottawa (10 Mar. 2011) In honour of bottled water day, NUPGE is lighting the top three myths about bottled water:
MYTH #1: Bottled water is simply one of thousands of legitimate uses of public water; plastic water bottles are 100% recyclable and are among the most recycled consumer products on the market.
FACT: We already get drinking water coming out of our taps. Bottled water is an unessential use of an essential PUBLIC resource.
Just because something is ‘recyclable’ doesn’t mean it gets recycled. More than 4 billion pounds of plastic water bottles go into landfills each year at an annual cleanup cost to cities of at least $70 million a year in the U.S. alone. Fewer than 20 percent of plastic water bottles discarded in the U.S. are recycled and bottled water corporations have aggressively lobbied against the expansion of container deposit laws to include bottled water even though they are proven to increase recycling significantly.
MYTH #2: Banning the sale of bottled water removes the healthiest option available in beverage containers.
FACT: The choice is not between bottled water and sugary drinks, it is between bottled water and tap water. In the past we counter this argument saying that the choice is for supporting access to publicly delivered tap water. In the same way that Pepsi does not sell Coke products in its plants, cities should not be selling a product that competes with publicly delivered tap water.
Beverage corporations work hard to get consumers to drink less tap water and more of the products they sell and profit from. Aren’t these corporations that are now so concerned about healthy beverage choices the same corporations that have built fortunes on sugary sodas, milk chocolate candy bars and potato chips?
MYTH #3: Bottled water is the most environmentally friendly beverage product available in packaged form.
FACT: There is no green solution to bottled water given that it requires far more energy to produce plastic bottles, fill them with water and ship them to market than it does to deliver public drinking water through the municipal system.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
More Information:
Sign the Pledge - click here