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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFIN-08-095 - Bottled Water Alternatives - Additional Info j Financial Services Report To: Date of Meeting: Submitted By: Prepared By: Ward(s) Involved: Date of Report: Report No.: Subject: Mayor C. Zehr and Members of Council June 23, 2008 Pauline Houston, General Manager of Community Services Tammy Gerber, Marketing Strategist, 741-2628 N/A June 19, 2008 FIN-08-095 BOTTLED WATER AL TERNATIVES- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RECOMMENDATION: For information related to item four of the Finance and Corporate Service Committee Report from the June 9,2008 meeting. BACKGROUND: At the June 9, 2008 Finance and Corporate Services Committee meeting, the Committee considered Financial Services Department report FIN-08-091 regarding the development of a strategy to potentially eliminate the purchase and sale of bottled water at all City facilities where practical and to raise awareness of why tap water is safe, economical and environmentally friendly. At that time staff were requested to provide a list of City facilities where this initiative could be practically implemented, as well as a fact sheet outlining the environmental impacts of bottled water consumption prior to the June 23, Council meeting. REPORT: With respect to the request for the list of facilities, as part of the development of the overall strategy Kitchener Utilities will work with staff from across the Corporation to determine the facilities where banning the sale of bottled water can be practically implemented. The strategy development will entail reviewing the sources of tap water currently available at a facility, identifying opportunities and associated costs for expanding the availability of tap water and the nature in which the facility is used. For example, in some facilities such as Golf Courses the elimination of the sale of bottled water is not practical given the need to offer bottled water as a safety precaution against heat-related stress and exhaustion. Accordingly, the list of City facilities where this initiative can be practically implemented is anticipated to be presented to Council in the Fall of 2008 in conjunction with the Bottled Water Alternative Strategy. The environmental impacts of bottled water consumption are illustrated in the attached appendixes. Appendix A, provides information from Polaris Institute, entitled "From Cradle to Grave: The Environmental Footprint of Bottled Water" and Appendix B, outlines information from David Suzuki Foundation, "Message in a Bottle". In addition, the April 2008 edition of the Region of Waterloo's "Environews" indicates that the Region recycles more than 150,000 single use bottles every day at the Materials Recycling Centre on Erb Street in Waterloo and seven times more water is required to make a plastic bottle than the bottle holds. In addition to the information provided in Report FIN-08-091 regarding other proposed bottled water bans, it has come to our attention that the City of London is also considering banning the sale of bottled water at City facilities. London's bottled water plan will be discussed at a public participation meeting on August 11th at London City Hall. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS: There could be potential costs involved if infrastructure improvements at City facilities are necessary to make tap water more readily available. Costs could also be associated with the investment of re-usable bottles that could be potentially sold at City facilities to promote the use of tap water. COMMUNICATIONS: As the water provider to City of Kitchener residents, Kitchener Utilities will continue to promote to residents that the water coming out of their taps is safe to drink, economical and the environmentally friendly option. Tammy Gerber Marketing Strategist Pauline Houston, CA General Manager of Financial Services & City Treasurer Wally Malcolm Director Utilities APPENDIX A ALTERNATIVES TO BOTTLED WATER RECOMMENDATION Information from Polaris Institute. Ottawa. Ontario. June 17th. 2008 www.Dolarisi nstitute.ora FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE: The Environmental Footprint of Bottled Water Producing bottled water · Bottled water manufacturers are the end point of a supply chain that contains some of the biggest polluters on the planet. The two primary raw materials in polyethylene terphtalate (PET) are derived from crude oil. Single serve plastic bottles are primarily made from PET plastic. The extraction of these primary raw materials involves oil and petrochemical corporations such as British Petroleum, ExxonMobil and Shell. · It takes large amounts of energy to produce plastic bottles, approximately 3.4 megajoules to manufacture the packaging, bottle and cap of a one-litre plastic bottle (Source: Pacific Institute) . · The 31.2 billion Iitres of bottled water consumed annually in the United States, uses more than 17 million barrels of oil to produce(Source: Pacific Institute). · The notion that the bottled water industry uses comparatively little water is misleading; the focus should not be on the overall amount of water. Groundwater use needs to be approached using a watershed-by-watershed analysis · Some communities have raised concerns about the impacts of removing hundreds of thousands of Iitres of water a day and how little is being paid for it. Potential impacts include reduced water levels which can impact other water users and negatively affect local watersheds. · The issue of water takings is complex. Ground and surface water taking laws and regulations differ Province-to-Province and State-to-State · The Pacific Institute estimates that it takes twice as much water to produce a bottled water than what is sold in the bottle (Source: Pacific Institute) Transportation · The bottled water industry relies on container ships, trucks and cars to transport raw materials to the plants and finished products to where they are sold. Oil based transportation contribute to global warming in the production of greenhouse gases. · Consider the greenhouse gas emissions of luxury bottled water brands that travel from one continent to another (eg. Fiji water from Fiji, San Pellegrino from Italy)! · The use of tap water remains within a watershed and the delivery system is significantly more energy efficient APPENDIX A - Paae 2 ALTERNATIVES TO BOTTLED WATER RECOMMENDATION Plastic waste · When considering the Iifecycle of a bottle of water, its energy costs are the equivalent, on average, to filling up a quarter of each bottle with oil (Source: Pacific Institute) · Bottled water and plastic resource companies have spent millions of dollars to weaken and/or defeat bottle bills (deposit return programs) which require the industry to assume some of the costs of recycling and help reduce the use of virgin plastic in new bottles. · According to one report, the recovery of plastic beverage bottles in Canadian provinces varies dramatically. Provinces with deposit return programmes fare much better. The average recovery rate for beverage bottles in non-deposit programs is 330/0, compared with an average of 750/0 where these programmes are in use. Overall, there was an average recovery (recycling) rate of only 480/0 for all plastic beverage containers (CM Consulting: An Overview of Plastic Bottle Recycling in Canada). · According to the Container Recycling Institute, in the US an estimated 144 billion containers were wasted (in landfills, incinerators or as litter) in 2005. To replace these bottles, it took approximately 18 million barrels of crude oil equivalent (CRI: Water, Water Everywhere, February 2007). APPENDIX B ALTERNATIVES TO BOTTLED WATER RECOMMENDATION Information from David Suzuki Foundation. "Messaae in a Bottle". Mav 16. 2008 www.davidsuzuki.ora Message in a Bottle - The water that comes out of most city taps in Canada is pretty clean. Yet many people prefer to spend money on bottled water, believing that it is somehow safer. Now we're learning that the stuff in plastic water bottles may be more harmful than anything in our tap water. Bisphenol A is just one chemical that's been in the news - and in many plastic bottles - recently. This compound mimics estrogens (human female hormones) and has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers and childhood developmental problems. It is found in clear, hard polycarbonate plastic commonly used in household and commercial water coolers and some reusable bottles, and it's just one potentially harmful substance associated with plastic containers. The presence of chemicals isn't the only reason we should try to wean ourselves from the bottle, though. For one thing, bottled water is expensive, costing more than a comparable amount of gasoline. Unlike most nations on Earth, Canada has vast quantities of fresh water. Have we so polluted our water that we feel compelled to pay a lot for it? And from beginning to end (and for plastics, that end is a long time away), plastic bottles contribute to environmental problems. To start, the manufacturing process is a factor in global warming and depletion of energy resources. It takes close to 17 million barrels of oil to produce the 30 billion water bottles that U.S. citizens go through every year. Or, as the National Geographic website illustrates it: "Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That's about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle." It also takes more water to produce a bottle than the bottle itself will hold. Canadians consume more than two billion Iitres of bottled water a year, and globally, we consume about 190 billion Iitres a year. Unfortunately, most of those bottles - more than 85 per cent, in fact - get tossed into the trash rather than the recycling bin. The pollution from plastics affects our air, land, and water. Many plastic bottles end up in landfills or get incinerated, and burning plastic releases toxic chemicals into the air. Plastic that stays on land or that is buried can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, it doesn't completely biodegrade. One of the most disturbing things is what happens to plastic that ends up in the oceans - which is about 10 per cent of all plastic produced, according to Greenpeace. About 900 kilometres off the coast of California, a massive, expanding island of plastic debris 30 metres deep and bigger than the province of Quebec swirls in what is known as the North Pacific Gyre. In a recent APPENDIX B- Paae 2 ALTERNATIVES TO BOTTLED WATER RECOMMENDATION column for CBC's website, writer Heather Mallick described it as "a hideous chyme stretching and pulsing in the sea like an underwater gob of spiky phlegm." Plastic doesn't biodegrade; rather, it photodegrades, which means that, under sunlight, it just keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. The tiniest bits of plastic, called nurdles, enter the food chain when they are eaten by marine animals and birds. Nurdles also soak up toxins, adding to the poisons consumed by animals and every creature up the food chain. More than a million birds and marine animals die every year from eating plastic waste or from becoming entangled in plastics. If the environmental damage caused by plastic bottles or the existence of potentially toxic chemicals in the bottles isn't enough to make you avoid them, how about some reasons that hit closer to home? First there's the fact that many bottlers get their water from municipal supplies. Coca Cola filters and bottles water from municipal sources in Calgary and Brampton for its Dasani brand. Pepsi's Aquafina comes mostly from Vancouver and Mississauga. That's right: they're taking your tap water and selling it back to you at a markup that can be as high as 3,000 times the price you pay for it through your taxes. There's also a danger that governments may use the growing reliance on bottled water as an excuse to avoid their responsibility to ensure we have access to safe drinking water. The federal government must address any existing concerns about drinking-water quality with enforceable standards designed to protect human health. If you're worried about chlorine in your drinking water, put it in a pitcher and let it stand overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate - or consider buying a carbon activated filter for your tap. To carry water with you, fill up your stainless steel or glass bottle from the tap, and enjoy. Water is a precious resource that belongs to all of us. Let's not take it for granted. And let's not put it in plastic.