Water Bishops Environmental Club has dedicated this years Rock 4 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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

• ttle

le water? r? The 31. 1.2 2 billio lion litres s of bot

• ttle

led water er consume med annuall lly y in the Un United States, s, uses s more re than 17 million lion barrel rels s of oil to pro roduc uce(Source

ce: Paci cific c Institute).

....A .Accor

• rdin

ing g to one re repor

• rt,

, 235,08 5,086 6 tons of plastic ic bott

• ttle

les s were ge generat rated and approximat ximately 84,7 ,744 44 tons were re recovered and re recycle led in 2002 02 in Canada.

• a. Overall,

rall, there was an averag age re recovery ra rate of only ly 48% in 2002 02 for all plastic ic beverag age contain iners s in Canada a (CM Cons

nsult lting ng for Environme

• nment

nt and Plastics cs Industry y Counc ncil l [EPIC]: An Overview of Plastic c Bottle Recycli ycling ng in Canada, nada, August 2004).

...The The bot

• ttle

led water r indust stry re relie ies s on contain iner r ships, ps, trucks and cars rs to tra ranspo sport ra raw materials ials to the plants s and finished ished pro roducts s to where they are re sold. . Oil based tra ranspo sportat atio ion contribut ibutes s to global bal warmin ming g in the pro roduc uction ion of gre reenho house use gase ses.

• s. (insidet

ethebot

• ttle

le.or

• rg)

Munici

icipa pal l water ter syste tems ms must te test for harmfu mful l microbio

• biolo

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

• bes 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 pl plastic ic are e expe pended ded in the bottlin ling

• f 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

• n 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

• rding

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

• 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

• ke

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!