quote:

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How unlikely, that at the peak of a sweltering summer, people on playgrounds, in parks, and on beaches are suddenly wondering if an ice-cold bottle of fresh water might be a bad thing.

In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.

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More bottled water for kids means more cavities. It's just one more example of (creeping) privatization of a public good. Hmm. Maybe that's behind the indifference among conservatives to the environment. They're looking to make a profit from privatizing the air we breathe. It all makes sense now.

[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

And IIRC, another company (Pepsi?) just lot a court case in the UK where they now have to add the words 'municipal water source' to their bottles.

Many years ago I worked for a bottled water company, and spent many hours operating a bottle filler that essentially came straight out the the Edmonton taps (with a token filter beforehand).

On top of that, the plastics, when exposed to sunlight or even just the passage of time, release carcinogens into the water.

Yet...

I still feel guilty drinking it!!!

quote:

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That's exactly what I'd like to get - refillable bottles that are not plastic. I have no idea where to get something like that, though.

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I got to the cycling store and they were selling the damn things for between $35 and $40!!

No frigging way I'm going to buy a BOTTLE for that.

So I thought, well, this must be because SIGG is trendy. I wonder what else I can find. I went to Grassroots and they didn't have any stainless steel bottles in stock, but they normally do, and they sell them for considerably less.

This morning I thought, I'm going to do more searching for stainless steel bottles in Toronto. I came upon a livejournal group where someone was looking for glass bottles, and someone recommended to her that she just buy a bottle of SoBe, rinse it out and use that, and apparently it doesn't leak.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I went after work to a cycling store because I wanted to pick up a stainless steel bottle. I saw SIGG bottles online and they were selling for $18.95 in the US. I thought, well, okay, that's expensive, but I easily buy 30 bottles of water in a month, so even if it's a few bucks more in CDN money, what the heck.

I got to the cycling store and they were selling the damn things for between $35 and $40!!

No frigging way I'm going to buy a BOTTLE for that.

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Can you order the product online? I would think that if you found someone selling it for US$18.95 and you used a credit card, you would only pay the true exchange rate, no?

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I came upon a livejournal group where someone was looking for glass bottles, and someone recommended to her that she just buy a bottle of SoBe, rinse it out and use that, and apparently it doesn't leak.

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Speciality mineral water I don't necessarily have a problem with. I agree with Sven that it's akin to soda pop, but healthier.

ETA: Also, MEC carries aluminum [< $15] and stainless steel [< 25$] drinking bottles at affordable prices.

[ 16 August 2007: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

quote:

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Originally posted by M.Gregus:
What's the difference between aluminum and stainless-steel water bottles, health-wise?

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Aluminum is lighter, and thus more utile for backcountry hiking etc. That said, I doubt any differences in health impacts.

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From an environmental perspective, this guide says that aluminum takes more energy to manufacture compared to stainless steel.

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I can see that, but how long it lasts is another consideration. Steel will eventually rust, aluminum will not. And we should probably consider the energy involved in shipping as well, though I have no idea how much difference there would be.

It's assinine no matter how you slice it.

For camping and hikes, I have purchased a pair of wine skins for Rebecca West and I. Now mind you, while it's leather on the outside, I dare say it's lined with something freakishly envirohazzardous.

But I reverted to this because I don't like to carry bottles or canteens. Also, if one soaks the leather after filling, the evaporation keeps the water coolish.

I read in some forgotten text that British soldiers in the North African campaign learned to ditch their issued canteens in favour of the goat skins used by native North Africans.

As my tag line would indicate, there are questions about the water quality in some parts of London, and this, too, goes back to the Harris government.

Someone from the province told the city that adding acid to the incoming water treatment system would increase the effectiveness of alum. Alum is added to the water to latch onto suspended particulate, and take it to the bottom where it is removed.

Of course, no one bothered to correct the Ph of the outgoing water. So people that lived in older parts of London with lead pipes found that their water had alarmingly high levels of lead.

Now, people like me who live in the older parts that have lead pipes always thought that the years of accumulated lime on the inside diameter of lead pipes isolated the lead from the water. And it did.

Until someone added acid to the water.

I have lost track of where this issue lies at the moment in London. At one time the city was talking about helping out home owners like me so we could replace the lead pipe from the city pipe to our houses. ( our street was redone with modern pipe about ten years ago...maybe longer, but the old pipe from our houses to the new pipe was left.)

I am assuming that the great minds at the City of London are busy correcting the Ph level of the treated water.

Ass out of U and me springs to mind.

http://tinyurl.com/59ys5g

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The stuff of life is quickly becoming the stuff of controversy as the fight against commercial bottled water emerges as one of the fiercest environmental campaigns of the moment.

On one side is the industry and proponents who see bottled water as a viable, healthy choice, especially useful in places where water resources are limited or tainted, such as by natural disasters.

Pitched against them are various groups pushing for stricter regulations on bottled water and an end to its use as an everyday substitute for safe, publicly provided tap water. Critics say the costs of packaging and transporting bottled water puts a strain on the environment, and also raises ethical concerns about the use of Canada's water resources ...

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Bottled water sat on the desks of some trustees and staff at a public school board meeting last night, but this will soon be a thing of the past.

Trustees voted last night to stop buying and selling bottled water in schools by September 2009.

Trustee Ted Martin argued there are huge economic, environmental, pedagogical and arguably health costs associated with bottled water.

"People who complain about spending $1.20 on gas are spending almost twice that on water," he said. It takes more water to manufacture a bottle of water than can be held in that bottle. What's more, nearly nine out of 10 water bottles aren't recycled, even if they're placed in blue boxes, because nobody wants to buy used plastic, Martin said.

"We're creating far more plastic than can be recycled. . . . We have to pay people to take it away."

It's a myth that bottled water is cleaner and safer, Martin said, arguing bottled water is held to lower standards than municipal tap water, which has to be tested far more often.

Scott Piatkowski, who has children in local public schools, urged trustees to break new ground by going ahead with the ban. In previous meetings, the board's environmental advisory committee heard about schools elsewhere that have banned bottled water, but not whole school boards.

"If our children... leave (school) with the impression water is something that comes in a bottle rather than something that is part of our earth, we're selling ourselves short," Piatkowski said.

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I am starting to get rather frustrated at work because the tap water is yellowish here in our particular office (old pipes or something) and scary to contemplate drinking.

Our alternative? To buy Dasani water for $2.25 from the pop machine outside. In our office, we've been trying to get a line in the budget for a water filtration system because, I'm sorry, water is a human right and we shouldn't have to pay through the nose to drink water during the day when we're at work. And during our staff meetings, I insisted that we had to do a filtration system rather than one of those coolers that takes the water jugs, because I don't want us to use bottled water for environmental reasons (and also because I think it's wrong to buy water from private companies).

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Scott, that is awesome.

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Thanks, but I just showed up at the meeting to speak in favour of the initiative. Most of the credit goes to the preliminary work done by trustees Catherine Fife and Ted Martin and to the Environmental Advisory Committee which Catherine chairs.

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I am starting to get rather frustrated at work...

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Buy a refillable stainless steel or glass water bottle and fill it from the tap at home every morning.

[ 22 April 2008: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

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There are several patterns of water privatization, but none are as offensive as the bottling of water. In fact, most people are unaware of the veritable scandals existing behind the bottled water industry. Characteristically, these multinational water companies go into less industrialized countries, where they monopolize water reservoirs (most often, these public reservoirs are the only available water resources that a given community might have), and sell the water back to the community at a price that invariably is far too expensive for its residents to pay.

Water commodification is a global movement. In Africa, where privatization and lack of access to water is most prevalent, over half of the population earns less than one dollar a day; one can imagine the burden of trying to afford a bottle of water that is often priced a little higher than a dollar. Furthermore, women and female children are most affected, as they are forced to travel an average of five miles a day to fetch available water—often times this water is not even potable.

The time-consuming task of searching for water impedes women from obtaining jobs to help feed their families and hinders female children from attending school on a regular basis. It is stated that 40 billion working hours are spent carrying water each year and 26 percent of women’s time around the world is spent on physically obtaining the water. In addition, it is estimated that 443 million school days are lost each year due to water privatization and the consequences it has on individual lives.

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It can also give you cancer, weaken your bones, and improve your candidacy for alzheimers. That's not including all the other chemicals that wind up in your mouth: previously urinated Prozac, heart medication, anti-biotics and anything anyone might be popping to get through/by. Tap water, boiled or not, belongs in a cesspool.

"Taylor Study, University of Austin: fluoride concentration of 1PPM (parts per million) increases tumor growth rate by 25% Fluoride is more poisonous than lead, and just less poisonous than arsenic - Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products -- 1984 "A seven ounce tube of toothpaste, theoretically at least, contains enough fluoride to kill a small child." - Procter&Gamble, quoted in Fluoride the Aging Factor p14 Fluoride supplements should not be given to children under three years old - 1992 Canadian Dental Association Proposed Fluoride Guidelines, Dr. Limeback Fluoride Accelerates Your Aging Process.

Austrian researchers proved in the 1970s that as little as 1 ppm fluoride concentration can disrupt DNA repair enzymes by 50%. When DNA can't repair damaged cells, we get old fast.

Fluoride prematurely ages the body, mainly by distortion of enzyme shape. Again, when enzymes get twisted out of shape, they can't do their jobs. This results in collagen breakdown, eczema, tissue damage, skin wrinkling, genetic damage, and immune suppression.

Practically any disease you can name may then be caused. All systems of the body are dependent upon enzymes. When fluoride changes the enzymes, this can damage: immune system digestive system respiratory system blood circulation kidney function liver function brain function thyroid function.

Things wear out too fast - the young body becomes old. The distorted enzymes are proteins, but now they have become foreign protein, which we know is the exact cause of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, arthritis, asthma, and arteriosclerosis."

link

[ 07 May 2008: Message edited by: viigan ]

(Edited because I mixed up the u and o in fluoridated, and we really don't want flour in our water)...

[ 07 May 2008: Message edited by: lagatta ]

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In Canada, the bottled water issue has become, as Wilk says, an "uprising." College students are staging protests -- declaring "bottled water-free zones" on campus. High school activists are raising questions about why their school board members are locking them into a contract with Coke or Pepsi (makers of Aquafina and Dasani bottled water) when they have access to drinking fountains for free. Some students have jokingly started to sell bottled air for $1.

In an even bolder move, the United Church of Canada asked its three million members to consider banning bottled water during meetings and events. "We just had a lot of concerns about governance and accountability," says Julie Graham, who leads the anti-bottled water campaign for a Toronto ecumenical activist group called Kairos. "Why is it people in Canada are willing to pay twice as much for bottled water as for gasoline? We started challenging that and raising questions about billions of empty bottles going into landfills."

Others, like Richard Girard, a corporate researcher for the Ottowa-based Polaris Institute, don't like the hypocrisy they perceive in the bottled water marketing. "This movement is gaining momentum because the general public is starting to figure out bottled water is a scam," says Girard. More than half of all bottled water is simply filtered tap anyway, he argues. And some of it is actually worse in quality because bottled water companies aren't subject to the same strict oversight as public water supplies.

"We want the bottled water corporations to be held accountable for their actions," Girard says. "These companies are essentially commodifying water. We hope we can force them to change and be more environmentally responsible."

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The outrageous success of bottled water, in a country where more than 89 percent of tap water meets or exceeds federal health and safety regulations, regularly wins in blind taste tests against name-brand waters, and costs 240 to 10,000 times less than bottled water, is an unparalleled social phenomenon, one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But why did the marketing work? At least part of the answer, I'm beginning to understand, is that bottled water plays into our ever-growing laziness and impatience.

Americans eat and drink more on the run than ever before. The author Michael Pollan reports that one in three American children eat fast food every single day, and 19 percent of American meals and snacks are eaten in the car. Bottled water fills a perceived need for convenience (convenience without the calories of soda, that is): hydration on the go, with bottles that fit in the palm of the hand, in a briefcase or purse.

According to research conducted by the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), between 1960 and 1970 the average person bought 200 to 250 packaged drinks each year-mostly soda and beer-and many of those were in refillable bottles. When I was growing up, my family drank only from the faucet and from family-size containers. We quenched our thirst, when out and about, with water from public fountains. Either that, or we waited till we got where we were going. On picnics, we might have a big plastic jug of lemonade, homemade. Sure, the grown-ups occasionally bought beer, but the idea of single-serve beverages were considered, by and large, frivolous.

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• Decline and disappearance of public drinking fountains due to underfunding of public works.

• Excuse for restaurants and other food retailers to charge customers for water instead of providing it free.

• Public paranoia about water safety, fluoridation, contamination, etc. since 9/11 and Walkerton, plus the 11% of US tap water supplies that do not meet federal health and safety standards, plus the growing number of boil-water advisories in Canada.

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
• Decline and disappearance of public drinking fountains due to underfunding of public works.

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You must like double dipping.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

But, if a person can't drink water like Pellegrino, then a person, by rights, shouldn't be drinking pop or soda either, no? Or beer?

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In terms of food miles I wish we had more Niagara and other Ontario wines here at the SAQ. Québec wine hasn't really taken off yet (alas that will require a couple more degrees of global warming) - we have very few Ontario selections, and they are terribly overpriced. I pick up Ontario wine when I'm in Ottawa.

But yes, technically people would be better off cutting way back on all products that come in single-serve packaging.

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While the champagne might not be popping just yet in New Hampshire, there is good reason to celebrate for members of Save Our Groundwater and other concerned residents. After years of fighting against the attempt by USA Springs to draw over 300,000 gallons of a water a day from underground aquifers to be used for bottled water, it looks like the water bottler is pulling out of the area.

Just last week it was announced that the 100-acre property owned by the company will be put up for auction on June 30 after announcing foreclosure and the 176,000-square-foot bottled water facility that was planned looks to be scrapped.

The company's official statement read:

The recently published foreclosure notice is merely a procedural step to maintain the lender's position with respect to a complicated situation, which includes a legal dispute and involves confidential information. Some of the issues are related to refinancing delays attributable to the troubled credit market in these difficult economic times.

The company expects to move past this lender issue relatively quickly and offers its strong assurance that there will not be a foreclosure auction on June 30, 2008. The main focus of the company is on completing the construction and becoming operational.

As the local paper Foster's Daily Democrat reported, "Regardless of the outcome, the seven-year struggle is a testament of the efforts of area residents who are concerned about protecting natural resources, especially the underground reservoirs that provide water to the region."

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It started with San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom, but now the rest of the country is getting on board. Last summer Newsom issued an executive order canceling San Francisco's bottled water contracts. Now, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents more than 1,100 mayors nationwide, a resolution was passed to encourage all mayors to phase out their cities' spending on bottled water and to promote tap water.

"Cities are sending the wrong message about the quality of public water when we spend taxpayer dollars on water in disposable containers from a private corporation," said Newsom. "Our public water systems are among the best in the world and demand significant and ongoing investment."

The resolution was spurred by not just Newsom, but the more than 60 other mayors who have been canceling bottled water contracts to help their cities save money and protect the environment. The most recent to join the tide were San Jose, Miami and Orlando. But the resolution is supported by other major cities like Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Boston.

....

As Newsom summed up: "The fact is, our tap water is more highly regulated than what's in the bottle. Years of misleading bottled water marketing have led residents to believe otherwise. Years of misleading marketing have also led the city to spend taxpayer dollars on lucrative bottled water contracts -- even when the city itself provides water that is every bit, if not more, safe, reliable and thirst-quenching."

While tap water may be safer than most bottled water, we need increasing vigilance to protect funding to keep it that way and to ensure continued federal funding for our public water infrastructure. It is estimated that cities need $22 billion each year to keep up their public water systems, and the Conference of Mayors resolution is one way to help increase support for public water.

"The bottled water bucks stop here," said Newsom. "We should not be consumed with the disposal of billions of pounds of plastic water bottles each year. Instead, we should be providing city employees and residents access to quality drinking water, regardless of their means."

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- (GREENWICH, Connecticut, June 24, 2008) – This announces a product recall for the one-gallon Nestlé Pure Life Purified Drinking Water sold ONLY in Shop-Rite stores in the five Northeast states of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. This affects ONLY the one-gallon size.

Fewer than 150 one-gallon bottles of Nestlé Pure Life Purified Water are implicated, produced in a short timeframe on May 5, 2008 between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM. The product date code is printed on the shoulder of one-gallon bottles. The code is:

First line…………050508126WF024
Second line……... Starts with the numbers "08"
For example: 0801BB05/2010

The product in question may contain a diluted form of a common food grade cleaning compound that results in a bitter or sour taste. This could pose a potential health concern if ingested in large quantities over an extended period of time and should not be consumed or used in preparing infant formulas or other foods or beverages. No illnesses have been reported.

To further assure consumers, Shop-Rite, as of Monday, June 23rd, has removed any remaining affected product from their stores and warehouses.

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Coke and Pepsi fear bottled water backlash

Comparison of the Environmental Impact of Tap Water vs. Bottled Mineral Water (report prepared for the Swiss Gas and Water Association)

Key finding: The environmental impact of bottled water is 90 to 1000+ times greater than that of tap water.

[ 16 July 2008: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Piatkowski:
Some reading:

Coke and Pepsi fear bottled water backlash

Comparison of the Environmental Impact of Tap Water vs. Bottled Mineral Water (report prepared for the Swiss Gas and Water Association)

Key finding: The environmental impact of bottled water is 90 to 1000+ times greater than that of tap water.

[ 16 July 2008: Message edited by: Scott Piatkowski ]

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Well good. It's about time. My tiny violin is playing for Coke and Pepsi.

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The concept of virtual water was created by Professor John Allan of King's College, London, who was awarded the 2008 Stockholm Water
Prize for it. It measures the amount of water that's used in food production and in industrial processes such as the manufacture of textiles. The WWF report says 62% of the water consumed in Britain is virtual water from other countries.

Another term for it is "embedded water". Other technical terms that environmentalists use when discussing problems of water supply are "water footprint", the amount of water, both virtual and visible, used by a country, a business or an individual (a term closely related to "carbon footprint"), and "blue water", water withdrawn from ground and surface reserves, as opposed to "green water", which is taken directly from rainfall.

* Khaleej Times, Dubai, 22 Mar. 2008: The concept of "virtual water" holds immense relevance for the water-scarce countries. Much water can be saved by cultivating only those food crops which need less water and importing the food items and other agricultural produce that need high amounts of water.

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Who started this "hydrating" craze? I like what Lewis Black said about it, that one drank water when one was thirsty, not when one was, bbbbrrup, hydrating!

When we were kids playing hockey in the early 70s we weren't even allowed to drink water during games. Even now I can take it or leave it while playing.

I think this contemporary quirk that has people carrying botles of water everywhere they go is about as faddish as wearing spats or corsets, and equally as healthy.

And as far as home-brewed beer goes, I use a lot of water washing my bottles and fermenting bin, so I don't know how good for the environment making beer is.

[ 26 August 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

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Water fountains are becoming an endangered species on university campuses across Canada.

That’s one of the findings of a national on-line survey, Corporate Initiatives on Campus: A 2008 Snapshot (.pdf), designed to document the commercial and corporate presence on Canadian campuses.

Responses to the survey, which was developed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Polaris Institute, paint a picture of rapidly decaying water fountains and a lack of access in educational institutions across the country to clean, potable tap water.

Thirty three percent of respondents noted a reduction in the number of drinking water fountains on campus. Forty three percent of respondents cited delays in repairing existing water fountains. Others said that new buildings are being built without water fountains, that existing water fountains and cold water taps in washrooms are being removed, and that vending machines are blocking access to water fountains. One response from Brock University in St. Catharines explained “there are no water fountains” in new buildings on campus, “only Pepsi machines.”

“Why are University and College administrations limiting student access to potable tap water in new buildings on campus?” asked Tony Clarke, Director of the Polaris Institute. “It seems clear that Canadian universities and colleges are bowing to pressure from Coke and PepsiCo to eliminate competition to their bottled water brands.”

According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), bottled water is the tip of a much larger privatization iceberg. “More and more North American cities are getting back to the tap by eliminating bottled water in their buildings. Public (or municipal) water is the safe, affordable and environmentally-sound choice for all public buildings in the country,” said CUPE National President Paul Moist.

The survey covers: the general commercial or corporate presence on campus; contracting-out; exclusive beverage marketing; access to drinking fountains/tap water, and campus action in response to these trends.

Among its findings: 79% of respondents indicated there are fast-food suppliers on campus; 79% cite corporate sponsorship of activities like Welcome Week or Spirit Week; 54% of respondents said their campus had an exclusive arrangement with Coke and 40% an exclusive arrangement with Pepsi.

“Commercialism on campus is a trend we know is on the increase,” explained Erika Shaker of the CCPA. “The responses to this survey provide a preliminary look at the effects of this trend on campus life, from sponsored activities and research to the most basic: access to tap water.”

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Rabble News article on the same subject

[ 09 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

For $8 the 500ml is adequate.

http://www.kitchenstuffplus.com/search/index.php?searchstring=water+bo ttle&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0

[ 07 September 2008: Message edited by: wasabi ]

Anyhow, I came to this thread to share this:

Where have all the water fountains gone?

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A Canadian example of water fountain omission comes from a recent survey of corporate presence on Canadian university campuses. The survey confirmed that access to drinking water on university campuses is becoming increasingly limited. Respondents to the survey noted a reduction of the number of fountains on campus and an increasing number of broken fountains. One respondent from Brock University said that, “In new buildings on campus, there are no water fountains, only Pepsi machines, and the water fountains that do exist are sparse and in inaccessible places.”

These two examples show that serious questions need to be asked about how developers, and, in these cases, university administrations, can get away with leaving water fountains out of building plans.

Who writes the building codes that allow for the omission of water fountains? How are the codes interpreted or manipulated by developers to exclude proper access to municipal drinking water sources? Regulatory bodies charged with writing and overseeing building codes need to hear loud and clear that bottled water is not the right option for hydrating large numbers of people.

Now that the bottled water industry is on the ropes and municipalities are shunning these products in favour of tap, water activists have a golden opportunity to start looking for answers. The question of public infrastructure should be thrust into the bottled water debate with strong and well organized calls for greater public investment in water services.

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quote:

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
I always thought the idea of bottled water was crazy.

Who started this "hydrating" craze? I like what Lewis Black said about it, that one drank water when one was thirsty, not when one was, bbbbrrup, hydrating!

[ 26 August 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

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This started with the same crap of "Drink 8 glasses of water per day and lose weight, stay young, have healthy skin blah blah blah". In other words, the massive money hogging weight loss scammers who also blathered about excess salt causing weight retention.

Now, the water needed for humans to survive also includes the water in their food, tea, coffee, etc.

People rarely dehydrate in G7 countries just from lack of water. The same scammers selling you the water claim you shouldn't have salt.

Hot countries cook spicy foods with plenty of salt and hand you a jug of water. Why? Well, it would seem such "backward" people long ago figured out that without salt in hot weather--you die.

I wound up physically ill from lack of salt. Took 35 years for a doctor to figure that out because we've been so conned that

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A Liberal private member's bill to ban single-use bottled water was defeated [Friday] by political party members of all stripes.

"I wanted to create a dialogue and raise awareness of these issues," said Liberal MPP Dr. Kuldip Kular (Bramalea-Gore-Malton). "I hope in my next term I can bring it back."

The proposed ban was on single-use plastic water bottles – such as those sold in variety stores or in packs of 24 at the grocers. Kular said it would not affect other types of bottles used to sell water....

One of the Liberals who stood up against the bill was Education Minister Kathleen Wynne. After the vote, Wynne said she did so because some schools in Ontario have lead pipes and rely on bottled water. The water also gives kids something to drink that fits with nutritional guidelines.

"I am not opposed to this, I think it is a good idea. It is just the timing," she said. "I would really need to see a plan to provide alternatives for school boards using bottled water."

Environment Minister John Gerretsen told reporters earlier in the day he would like Ontario to become a "zero waste" society but he also doesn't want a one-off approach to something like this.

"Any effort like that should be applauded," he said. "But we don't want to make any judgments as to whether specific actions should be taken because we are in a consultation process right now – we want to hear from people and organizations."

"We encourage everyone to drink water out of the tap," said Gerretsen. "We have some of the best water in the entire world here in Ontario."

At a time when Ontario is in an economic crisis, focusing on a single-use water bottle ban is the wrong move, some Progressive Conservative members said.

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