Water, Water Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink From A Bottle For Schools In Canada

A local Canadian school district has decided to ban the purchase or sale of bottled water at any school related activities beginning next year. This decision stemmed from not only budget concerns, but from safety concerns regarding BPA as well.

The Waterloo Region District School Board has voted to eliminate the use of plastic bottled water in their schools beginning next school year in an effort that will hopefully cause other districts to follow suit. This means that the bottled water will no longer be available at school events, in vending machines or even at meetings. However, students will be allowed to bring their own bottled water from home if they wish to do so. Board trustee, Ted Martin said of the decision

"The thing about bottled water is that you can just as easily go to the tap – it's just as high quality" and in fact is tested more often and more rigorously.

"We were looking at cutting programs, as school boards always are, and I saw these blue boxes overflowing with empty bottles of water."

With recent cancer concerns over BPA and the amount of rubbish created by the empty plastic bottles, it is no wonder that more schools across world are not departing from the purchasing and selling of bottled water, especially when a viable source is within walking distance. In December of 2007, Digital Journal covered the first Canadian-based company to pull its BPA products. Said to be linked to early puberty, the district's decision is not off base from that point alone. An interesting decision and one that hopefully will spawn others to make a similar educated choice that will not only help districts save money in times of rising food costs, but will also assist in taking precautionary measures against those things that can harm our future leaders - our children.