Canada’s largest city, Toronto is considering banning bottled water in all municipal offices after another Canadian city, London in Ontario, issued a ban on bottled water after environmentalists began a public awareness campaign against it, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation reports.
David Miller, Mayor of Toronto, is threatening to do the same – despite the Toronto International Film Festival (North America’s biggest) fast approaching.
The festival is known as a showground for Fiji Water, which makes a huge effort to supply its product to all the main celebrities and associated hotels and functions.
“Fiji Water certainly is the must-have water of celebrities,” says promoter Natasha Koifman, who is set to try and drown the festival stars with free Fiji Water, metaphorically speaking.
However, Franz Hartmann of the Toronto Environmental Alliance says anyone who cares about the environment would not be drinking “jet-lagged water” from Fiji.
The film festival is expected to become the focus of a push by environmentalists against bottled water – a product they believe adds a huge carbon footprint to a product that is normally of no higher quality than tap water. The environmentalists’ concerns mainly hinge on the production and disposal of plastic bottles and the huge distances the water is transported around the globe.
The environmentalists believe that if Toronto decides to ban bottled water from all city functions, it could set the trend for the entire nation.
I do believe it would be beneficial if Toronto did ban bottled water from all city functions, especially since that would largely impact water bottle consumption in a quick way and would be ideal in setting a trend for Canada, or even wider. What we need though is an alternative way for providing such a large audience with enough water – possibly an eco-friendly water bottle venue could be conveniently stationed at these events, that way if you want water you can still get it, and even continue to reuse your bottle over and over again, rather than adding to the large quantity of wasted bottles at the end of most public events. It would be great to see some attempt at protecting the environment and providing public awareness about this issue.
I have a problem ,understanding if this is small bottle’s,or like my business in Yellowknife of bottleing 18.9 ltr bottles.
I am sure the people of Toronto elected leaders to ban bottled water. I am sure there might be more pressing issues. What would happen if the celebrities (known to be a fickle group) decided not to attend the film festival? What if 10% didn’t attend? What would happen to the film festival? If it collapsed how much revenue would Toronto loose? You know other cities have become arrogant and their economies have contracted because of harebrained political correctness. Toronto, remind your politicians WHY THEY WERE ELECTED!