I believe that governments at all levels should take any opportunity to set standards of excellence and, by example, teach good practices to the citizens they represent; hence, I have always been quick to point out instances of the complete opposite. To redeem myself, today I'd like to congratulate the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for their recent initiative in asking Canadian towns and cities to ban bottled water on municipal property. This is cause for applause and an example we should all be willing to follow.
The FCM reasons that it takes a lot of energy to produce the bottles, and, despite being recyclable, about half of them end up in landfills (seven million are dumped in Vancouver's landfill every year). Then, there is also the cost - with the $2.50 you pay for a bottle of water, you can fill up 6,000 bottles at home.
But let's look beyond the limits of our thirsty borders. In many countries, millions of people have no access to clean, drinking water. Often this access has been taken away from them by companies who then "give" the water back, not to those who need it, but to those who can afford it. (Stay tuned; this show may soon hit a town near you.)
Taking advantage of pollution and scarcity, tens of millions of dollars are spent annually by corporations trying to convince us that bottled water is better than tap water. We respond by spending one hundred billion dollars on the precious bottles worldwide every year. Huge profits are made from the new liquid gold, even in cases where these bottles have been found to contain the same city water that we get from the faucet, even in cases where bottled water has been found to contain dangerous substances like arsenic, even in cases where the pumps dry up our rivers, kill the life in our streams, contaminate our land.
We'd better wake up before we waste the last drop. One of the most significant impacts of climate change will be on our water resources. Caring for these should be a top priority for us all. Access to drinking water is a basic necessity - privatizing this common resource is utterly immoral, and we shouldn't let ourselves be fooled by colorful labels that hide the blackest of deeds: theft and deceit. Next they will be trying to sell us empty bottles that claim to contain the most pure mountain-fresh air. Come on, are we going to buy that as well?Ana SantosSquamish
