ROCK 4 Water Bishop’s Environmental Club has dedicated this year’s Rock 4 concert to water and hopes that you’ll help us make the BU campus bottled water free!
. In 2005, Canadians consumed 60 litres per person of bottled water, worth $652.7 million in sales. Why are we putting money into the pockets of corporations when we can get better water from our taps?
Did you know ... ...tha hat is takes es large e amoun unts s of energy rgy to pro roduc uce bott ottle le water? r? The 31. 1.2 2 billio lion litres s of bot ottle led water er consume med annuall lly y in the ...The The bot ottle led water r Un United States, s, uses s more re than 17 indust stry re relie ies s on million lion barrel rels s of oil to contain iner r ships, ps, trucks pro roduc uce (Source ce: Paci cific c Institute). and cars rs to tra ranspo sport ra raw materials ials to the plants s ....A .Accor ordin ing g to one re repor ort, , 235,08 5,086 6 and finished ished pro roducts s to tons of plastic ic bott ottle les s were ge generat rated where they are re sold. . Oil and approximat ximately 84,7 ,744 44 tons were based tra ranspo sportat atio ion re recovered and re recycle led in 2002 02 in contribut ibutes s to global bal Canada. a. Overall, rall, there was an averag age warmin ming g in the re recovery ra rate of only ly 48% in 2002 02 for pro roduc uction ion of gre reenho house use all plastic ic beverag age contain iners s in gase ses. s. (insidet ethebot ottle le.or org) Canada a (CM Cons nsult lting ng for Environme onment nt and Plastics cs Industry y Counc ncil l [EPIC]: An Overview of Plastic c Bottle Recycli ycling ng in Canada, nada, August 2004).
Munici icipa pal l water ter syste tems ms must te test for harmfu mful l microbio obiolo logica ical content tent in wate ter r sev everal l times a day. Bottle led d water comp mpan anie ies are re are re re requir quired ed to test for these se microbes obes only y once a week k at most. .
Did you know water has a limited life in bottles? Bottled water has a two-year shelf- life. Health Canada recommends replacement after a year...
According ding to to a 2001 repo port t of the World d Wide Fund for Nature e (WWF), F), roughl hly 1.5 millio ion n to tons of plastic pl ic are e expe pended ded in the bottlin ling of 89 billio ion n litres es of water ter each h year ar. .
Only y about t 10 percent rcent of wate ter bottles les are recycled, cled, leaving ng the rest in landf dfil ills ls wh where it takes es thousands sands of years s for the plastic tic to to decompo mpose. se.
App pproximat imatel ely 17 million on barrel els s of oil — enough h to to run 1 m million ion cars s for a whole e year ar — are us used to to make e pl plastic c water ter bottles les, , accor ording ding to to the e Pacific ic Institut tute. e.
Reusing plastic bottles further compromises the quality of the water, due to the fact that more and more phthalate leaches its way into the water as the bottle gets older.
To date, te, 12 12 municip ipal alities ities in Canada ada have e prohibited hibited the sale e of bottled led water ter in their ir jurisd sdictio ictions. s. Several al othe her r cities ies have e sto topped buying ng bottled ed water ter for inte ternal nal function ions. s.
“The problem with bottled water is that it’s the privatization of a resource that we all need to be able to drink for free,” says Joe Cressy, Polaris Institute researcher and member of the Inside the Bottle campaign.
Should ld we re reall lly y support an indus ustry that takes s somethin ing that is essen ential al to all l life and d turns it into o a commo modit dity? y? Buying bottle led d water says that it’s ok to privatize water suppli plies so that privat ate compan panie ies s can make a p profit it while le people ple who need ed water er are re forc rced ed to pay.
The Universit sity of Winnipe peg has voted ted to to go bottled led water ter free e and Sherbr rbrook oke e Univer ersity sity has also impl plem emented ented pl plans to to ph phase se out bottled ed water ter. . We want to to too too! Bishop’s first bottled water free zone will be in the University’s library!
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