English department banishes the bottle

 

 

Carleton’s English department is leading the way in bottled water policy, banning its sale following other universities who were also looking to ban the wasteful plastic.

 

The department adopted the policy on April 30, which also includes no longer providing bottled water at their meetings and events. It suggests the university follow suit with a campus-wide ban.

 

“This is a way we could promote sustainability within the department,” said Jody Mason, an assistant English professor at Carleton who helped spearhead the initiative. “It’s a very simple thing for us to do, but largely symbolic.”

 

However, the move for a bottle-free campus seems far off for Carleton, said Ed Kane, assistant vice-president (university services).

 

“The total removal of bottled water would require some thought as to providing alternatives,” said Kane. “Anything is possible, but it would appear that bottled water continues to be popular.”

 

Kane said bottled water is convenient for students rushing to class and that the plastic is, after all, recyclable. Banning bottled water would require installing more drinking fountains and providing other ways students could hydrate, he said. 

 

But, Washington University, Acadia University and the University of Waterloo have all seriously looked into bottled water bans, showing the issue of water sustainability is too big to ignore, Mason said.

 

“Water is a commons, a public trust,” she said. “The plastics are one issue, the other is water as a commodity.”

 

Banu Örmeci, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carleton and the Canada research chair in wastewater and public health engineering, said bottled water is a major sustainability issue.

 

“Bottled water comes at a much higher cost and creates serious environmental pollution,” she said.

 

It takes large amounts of energy to produce bottles and even more energy to transport the final product, said Örmeci. Even though it is recyclable, she said 52 per cent of bottles never make it to a recycling depot and take up to 700 years to decompose in a landfill.

 

This aside, unsafe tap water was the main concern with the policy, said Mason. But in reality tap water is completely safe, Örmeci said.

 

“Most people are led to think bottled water is safer than tap water by the industry and their heavy advertising campaigns, but there is no scientific evidence to support this,” she said.    

 

In fact, Örmeci said 30 per cent of bottled water comes from the tap and studies have shown some bottled water contains chemical contaminants such as disinfectant and pesticide residue.

 

Regardless of tap water concerns, Mason said people are generally supportive of the policy.

 

“I think that it’s important that it happens here, but it’s a long process,” she said.