Students at the University of Winnipeg have voted for a ban on the sale of bottled water on campus, and so it has become the first Canadian university where such a ban has been introduced.
Today, the University of Winnipeg became the first campus in Canada to ban the sale of bottled water, after a referendum in which students voted 3:1 for a cessation.
Annual sales of bottled water on the campus were in the region of 35,000 units, an amount that will significantly affect the profits of the campus’ cafeterias and vending machines. Sales will be phased out over the next few months to soften the blow and to allow the university to install more water fountains. The university will conduct an audit of the water system to ensure that the tap water is safe.
In February 2009, the Washington University in St Louis became the first to ban bottled water sales in the United States. At the end of 2008 students at Leeds University, one of the biggest in the UK, voted to ban still bottled water from all bars and cafes on campus, an action that will reduce annual profits by over £30,000 ($52K Canadian).
As reported in the
Toronto Globe and Mail , the bottled water industry in North America claims that these bans will cause students to buy other bottled drinks which will increase their intake of sugars and artificial sweeteners and lead to a less healthy lifestyle. The ban at Leeds University was called "a shame, removing the right to choose" by the National Hydration Council in the UK as quoted in
The Guardian newspaper.
The ban at The University of Winnipeg is part of a growing, global awareness campaign that now includes Ivy League campuses such as Baylor and Cornell. To ensure that students can have bottles to fill, every first-year University of Winnipeg student will get a free, reusable water bottle when they begin classes in the fall.
Critics claim that the problem is that slightly less than 25% of all bottles containing water are recycled – the rest end up in the landfill – so the public needs educating about recycling their beverage containers rather than having their drinking choices reduced.
Of course, it’s not just a matter of the bottles residing in a landfill for eternity - the two primary raw materials in polyethylene terphtalate (PET), used to make most plastic bottles, are terephthalic acid (PTA) and monoethylene glycol (MEG), toxic chemicals that are derived from crude oil. The 31.2 billion litres of bottled water consumed annually in the United States require more than 17 million barrels of oil to manufacture.
Roughly twice as much water is used in the production of the bottled water than is sold in the bottle. Water bottling plants remove water from rivers and streams, and lower the water table much like Coca Cola does when making Coke. These plants need container ships and trucks to deliver the raw materials to produce the bottled water.
It may only be a small step, but the University of Winnipeg's ban will help reduce the amount of drinking water taken from the natural environment and will also decrease the amount of vehicular pollution produced by the transportation of raw materials, both side effects of the bottled water industry.
