Montague looks to extend bottled water ban

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This article was published 17/02/2011 (5727 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon city councillor Stephen Montague thinks the city should be going further in its bottled water ban.

Council decided last June to eliminate the sale and provision of bottled water from city hall, which resulted in bottled water no longer being provided at city hall during public events and the staff vending machine no longer stocking the product.

Staff at the civic services complex voluntarily jumped on the "ban bandwagon" in the fall and by the end of 2010, the two locations had recorded a savings of nearly 2,500 bottles — bottles that would have, otherwise, entered Brandon’s refuse stream.

Capitalizing on those results, Montague (Richmond) has asked administration to see if the proper infrastructure is in place to install drinking fountains/water fill stations at all of Brandon’s civic properties.

"If we have the infrastructure in place and the public has access to it and we can supply safe, clean drinking water, I don’t know why we wouldn’t do that," he said. "We’ve received extremely positive results from the June decision for city hall, we’ve seen staff take their own initiative to eliminate it from there. It just keeps growing and it shows us as a leader on an environmental, sustainable issue."

Toronto is currently undertaking a similar initiative, working toward the elimination of bottled water from its civic buildings, Montague said.

An administrative report earlier this year suggested there are at least a dozen other locations in a number of other municipal buildings that could benefit from the installation of such fountains, including the Canada Games Sportsplex, the Parks building, the Brandon Municipal Cemetery office, the Brandon Municipal Airport and the water treatment plant.

If the city did move toward the elimination of bottled water at all of its buildings and/or events, that does not preclude members of the public from bringing their own bottled water into such venues, Montague noted.

"If you know you’re going to an event, they can simply take the steps themselves that they had a bottled water with them when they do."

The installation of the specialized water fountains that are currently at city hall and the civic services complex — which are handicap accessible, equipped with filling stations and measure water usage in litres and then displays it on an LED screen in front of users — cost approximately $2,500 a piece.

An administrative report on the issue will be brought back to council for debate at its March 14 meeting.