London, Ont., to vote on giving bottled water the boot

London, Ont., may become one of the first cities in Canada to stop selling bottled water in municipal buildings.

City councillors will vote Monday night on whether or not to ban the sale of bottled water in all city-run buildings, arenas and community centres amid a growing backlash against the product.

The vote comes after heated debate in the municipality on the role of bottled water in city facilities. Municipal officials have maintained that tap water costs about an eighth of a cent per litre while bottled water can range anywhere from 30 cents to $4 a bottle.

Environmentalists have said they are concerned by the amount of energy it takes to transport the bottles, as well as the waste produced by them, particularly when most areas of Canada have safe water supplies.

The Nestlé solution

Nestlé Waters Canada, the company behind such bottled water brand names as Perrier, Vittel and Montclair, said in an Aug. 11 news release that it was opposed to the ban because it wouldn't do enough to curb waste or reduce the public's preference for bottled water over tap water.

"In an independent survey conducted in May 2008 by Probe Research Inc., Canadians said they are not choosing bottled water over municipal tap water," said Gail Cosman, president of Nestlé Waters Canada in the release.

"What should be of particular concern to the City of London is that the Probe study also indicated that about 60 per cent of bottled water drinkers said they will revert to less healthy alternatives found in plastic beverage containers if bottled water isn't available."

Instead of a ban on plastic bottled water, Nestlé proposed a pilot recycling project in London that would collect plastic containers in public spaces such as parks, restaurants and city streets.

While water bottles can be recycled, the process consumes a great amount of energy, and many bottles end up being thrown out, says William Rees, sustainability planning professor at the University of British Columbia.

He says some major bottled water producers actually use municipal water. Dasani brand bottled water puts Brampton's municipal water through a filtration system before putting it on store shelves as its own product.

London is one of many communities and school boards in Ontario considering restricting the sale of water bottles. Others include Kitchener, Toronto and Ottawa.

Vancouver has also started looking into how to implement a bottled water ban in its city-owned properties.

More water woes

Concerns over retailing haven't been the only controversial aspect of bottled water to be raised in Ontario over the past year.

In April, Environment Canada gave Nestlé the green light to take 1.3 billion litres of groundwater a year from an area near Guelph for only the cost of a $3,000 application fee.

The approval meant the company's Guelph plant would not need to reduce its extraction quota of 3.6 million litres a day despite calls from Guelph Ministry of Natural Resources officials to curb water extraction from the Mill Creek sub-watershed in Aberfoyle, reported the Guelph Mercury newspaper.

Starting next year, Ontario will begin charging bottled water companies $3.71 per million litres of water extracted from the province's lakes, rivers and streams as a conservation fee, Premier Dalton McGuinty has since said. The charge should be considered a "floor" price, he said.