The small Southern Highlands town of Bundanoon took a stance on bottled water and created national headlines.
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Now, Central Tablelands Water – Canowindra’s water supplier – is set to join the fight against bottled water too.
Following the lead of local government areas such as Manly Council, Central Tablelands Water has announced it will join the Bottled Water Alliance.
The resolution came early this month and includes CTW seeking endorsement of the proposal from its three constituent councils and member councils of Centroc.
The water authority has stopped short of actually banning bottled water like Bundanoon famously did, and is instead aiming to promote the advantages of drinking clean safe tap water against the disadvantages and environmental damage with the use of bottled water.
In a report to the Council, CTW manager Tony Perry said the growth of bottled water is becoming an environmental disaster.
He urged people to join other areas such as Bundanoon and Manly by joining the Bottled Water Alliance and promoting the advantages of drinking clean safe tap.
“Bottled water is an environmental menace and, when you consider all the facts, a sheer waste of money,” he said, from information provided by the Alliance,” Mr Perry said.
”Bottled water hurts the hip pocket nerve. Financially, it just doesn’t make sense - some media commentators have gone so far as to call it a con.
“The increase in bottled water’s popularity has also given rise to major environmental problems. For one thing, Australia is drowning in a sea of plastic bottles, which create massive amounts of landfill and litter our streets. And significant resources are needed to bottle, transport and refrigerate water, especially if that water is imported from overseas.”
“The manufacture of bottles for water squanders a non-renewable resource - oil. The Department of Environment and Climate Change estimates that 200ml of oil is used to produce, package, transport and refrigerate each litre bottle of bottled water. As a result, at least 50 million litres of oil are used in the manufacture and distribution of bottled water in Australia every year.”
The Bottled Water Alliance aims to convince Australian councils to stop purchasing bottled water for their offices, facilities and events.
A number of Australian councils have since taken the same course of action and a motion to encourage the drinking of tap water instead of bottled water was passed unanimously at the NSW Local Government Conference in October 2007.
