Say No To Nestlé I am very…

Say No To Nestlé

I am very pleased that the province of Ontario is finally looking to do something to protect our precious water resources.
However, we don’t just need a 2-year moratorium on the issuance of new or increasing permits for water bottling, the taking of water for bottled water should be banned permanently.
Since the Walkerton tragedy, all municipal drinking water systems in Ontario are now being monitored and maintained to ensure that everyone has access to safe, clean drinking water. So why do we need bottled water anymore? There is absolutely no need for selling bottled water except corporate greed!
People can fill their reusable water bottles from their taps, and the water will be fresher and better quality than what’s in the bottled water being sold. There are no regulations to control the water quality and safety for bottled water, so there is no guarantee that the water is any better than what’s in our taps. So the water bottling companies can put anything they want in their bottles.
Also, allowing huge unlimited amounts of water to be removed from our aquifers and then bottled and shipped wherever and permanently removed from that watershed is insane! The water in any watershed or aquifer should be used and then returned via the water cycle and/or wastewater systems.
Water is a finite resource and should be protected at all costs. Once it’s depleted, it’s gone forever. And we can’t exist without fresh water! The province of Ontario needs to promote its water as a public trust, not a commodity to be sold.
As an Ontarian, I believe water is for life, not for profit!

The province also needs to deal with the plastic bottles themselves. More than 10,000 metric tonnes of plastic end up in the Great Lakes every year. One significant source of this pollution is single-use plastic beverage bottles. And in Ontario, only half the plastic bottles sold in the province are collected for recycling. That means that more than a billion bottles end up in landfills or littered in the environment annually. That’s almost 3 million bottles a day, or more than 100,000 every hour!
A proven way to solve this problem is by putting a deposit on the bottles similar to what we have for beer and liquor bottles. Deposit programs work – the province’s deposit program for beer bottles has a return rate of 98%.
Ontario is one of only two provinces without a deposit return for plastic bottles, and as a result has the lowest recycling rate of all. It’s time for Ontario to catch up to the rest of the country!

Freshwater is every person’s rightful inheritance, not a commodity to be traded on the global market for profit, or a resource to be managed. Water is a sacred gift to enjoy and respect during our time here. This rightful inheritance brings with it responsibility, to protect this life giving resource for future generations.