The president of Nestl茅 Waters Canada is ready to rush out here from Ontario to persuade our mayor to change his mind about the recent bottled water ban at Muni Hall.
And, in a letter to The Chief, the director of corporate affairs for Nestl茅 has advised council to defer the decision until all interested parties have been given the opportunity to express their views.
It's anybody's guess why the kingpins of a global corporate giant are attempting to harpoon a relative minnow in a pool filled with much bigger fish.
The Nestl茅 reps say the evidence against one of their company's biggest cash cows is all wrong. But that's not how a growing number of municipalities, schools, organizations and businesses see it.
Close to 70 Canadian municipalities, including Vancouver, London, Toronto and Halifax, have embraced the "turn on the tap" campaign.
South of the border the U.S. conference of mayors called on all municipalities to phase out the use of bottled water in city government buildings and at civic functions.
Last year, in an attempt to encourage the consumption of tap water, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities passed a similar resolution.
However you cut the cards, the stuff they use to make the bottles - polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - has a nasty rap sheet associated to it including the release of toxic substances and massive waste in landfills and oceans.
According to a report commissioned by Toxic Free Canada, Nestl茅's claim that 70 per cent of empty bottles are recycled here in B.C. is deceptive.
Most discarded PET plastic containers are not used to make more bottles; they are "downcycled" into a vast array of consumer products ranging from fleece vests to carpets and car seats.
Once these products are no longer in use, they are unceremoniously tossed into our landfills.
And, if we look at figures from 2007, because of the exponential increase in the sale of bottled water, even when large quantities of PET bottles were downcycled, the equivalent of 21,833 full sized pick-up truck loads of empty bottles were dumped in B.C.
The Toxic Free Canada report goes on to say that, "Whether measured by energy use, greenhouse emissions or the volume of plastic waste, PET plastic beverage bottles are creating an enormous environmental footprint in British Columbia," and "The claim made by Nestl茅 Waters that 'bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world' simply cannot be supported by the facts."
Besides using non-renewable fossil fuels in the bottle manufacturing process, the filling, labelling, sealing and transportation of the product eats up non-renewable energy.
According to Vancouver City Councillor Tim Stevenson, "Bottled water companies have had a fabulous ride on an unnecessary fad."
Before the Nestl茅 brass jump into their corporate jet and head to 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 to attempt some arm twisting at Muni Hall, they need to get a better understanding of the overwhelming evidence aligned against an overpriced, environmentally hazardous product which is rapidly reaching its best before date.
