By Dalhousie Gazette Staff
If someone offered to pour you a glass of water, you’d accept right? But what if they asked you for $1.75 in return? I would probably tell them to go fly a kite. Last year Aquafina, the company that bottles water with the refreshing blue mountains on the label, was called out on misinformation in the labeling of their product. The Aquafina labels do not clearly state that the product is from a public water source. That’s right, folks. It’s just tap water, distributed by Pepsi. Who knew?
Most don’t think twice about buying bottled water. Maybe your parents watched too many episodes of 60 Minutes (in this case you probably weren’t allowed to go trick or treating either), maybe you come from a region without access to clean drinking water or perhaps you are simply from that “social elite” who seem to think bottled water is fashionable. The point is you’re in Halifax now. The city boasts an above-and-beyond approach to Canada’s federal water policies, according to the Halifax Regional Municipality website. So take advantage of the sweet, sweet tap water that is readily available to you from your very own tap, water fountains and sinks on campus.
Halifax water is likely some of the safest, cleanest water you will ever drink. Mayor Peter Kelly agrees.
“We have in the Halifax Regional Municipality one of the highest-calibre tap waters in the country, if not in North America, and we should celebrate that point,” he told the Truro Daily News last year.
The Halifax Regional Water Commission Environmental policy promises to “meet or surpass all legislation, regulations and other applicable requirements and continuously improve the plants’ environmental performance consistent with defined objectives, targets and industry standards.”
The HRM is doing a pretty good job of that, with a water supply that comes from the beautiful, most adorably named Pockwock Lake, northwest of Halifax. The HRM uses watershed management as part of its multi-step approach to water quality. This means protecting and improving the quality of water before it gets to the treatment plant, taking into account social, environmental and technological aspects of water treatment to provide top quality drinking water and uphold environmental responsibilities.
The environmental impacts of water bottling facilities, water extraction, and transportation are devastating, and they unnecessarily use fossil fuels with every bottle.
According to the Pacific Institute, an environment and sustainability research centre in California, bottling water uses up to 2,000 times more energy than filling up a glass from the tap.
The institute also reports that bottled water is becoming so popular in the United States that its sales have surpassed beer and milk.
Some people associate bottled water with status, buying into ridiculous marketing schemes and paying top dollar for “the champagne of table water.” But consider the impact placed on the environment and society by this simple choice – bottle or tap?
If you aren’t a converted tap water drinker by now, at least consider the cost. We are students after all.
Recommended daily intake of fluids for the average human being is between 2.2 litres for females and three litres for males. A 591 ml bottle of Aquafina from the vendors in the Student Union Building costs $1.75 – remember, it’s just tap water! To meet the daily water intake with campus bottled water, from the SUB particularly, students would need four to five bottles. This runs up a bill of about $8. Over the school year this would cost about $1550 to $1750.
Holy (fill in the blank), you may be saying to yourself right now, but never fear. As previously mentioned, the tap is here! Reusable water bottles are an affordable and logical option to bottled water. Reusable water containers can be purchased for between $1.25 for a Mountain Equiment Co-op Nalgene (don’t worry, they’re BPA-free now) to $17.95 for a stainless steel Kleen Kanteen, all of which can be found around Halifax within a 20-minute walk from campus. Even the Dalhousie bookstore sells them. Of course you could always scout out reusable mugs and bottles at your local secondhand store.
The point is that bottled water is not a sustainable way of refueling. We are throwing money at the bottled water industry, one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries on the planet.
Bottled water is far inferior to municipal water in terms of quality and healthiness. For those of you drinking bottled water for your health, get out from under your rock because there is little evidence to support the health benefits of bottled water today. Bottled water sits on store shelves for months in chemical-leaching plastic bottles. That can’t be healthy.
Get in the now, folks. Like the slap bracelet and Pogs, bottled water is on the way out. Using the tap or a fountain instead of buying bottled water is a small change Haligonians can make that will make a huge difference in sustainability on the earth’s scale. So please, consider the consequences of what you buy, where it comes from and where it is going.
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