Source: The Economic Times Date : 09.07.2009
Can India follow West in saying no to bottled water?
SYDNEY: Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first
Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia's beverage industry in one day: Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.
``I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something,'' said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the ``Bundy on Tap'' campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Sydney. ``It's time for people to realize they're being conned by the bottled water industry.''
First popularized in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticized as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.
Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organizer of Corporate Accountability International's ``Think Outside the Bottle'' campaign in the U.S.
But the Boston-based nonprofit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.
``I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognizing that there's safe drinking water coming out of our taps,'' she said.
Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.
Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town's combination cafe and bike shop, had a thought: If the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, why not ban the end product?
To prevent lost profit in the 10-or-so town businesses that sell bottled water, Kingston suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public water fountains, or pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the stores.