letters to the editor
I saw this letter, had to respond:
Thunder Bay council has referred the Blue Communities Project resolution put forward by the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees to staff for a report.
In taking the cautious approach that it did, it appears that council fully recognizes this resolution for what it is: a Trojan horse-like treatise developed solely to encourage Canadian municipalities to ban the sale of bottled water in their facilities under the guise of human rights and infrastructure management.
While Janice Horgos is to be commended for her commitment to environmental sustainability, the Blue Communities Project is not an environmental initiative — it’s a political campaign being waged by CUPE against the Canadian beverage industry and its 13,000 employees across Canada.
CUPE national president Paul Moist acknowledged this in correspondence in various Ontario newspapers when he wrote, “Nestlé spokesperson John Challinor is partly right about CUPE’s joint work with the Council of Canadians on bottled water. The Blue Communities Project is absolutely a political campaign. What could be more appropriate than grassroots activism that invites our elected local representatives to have a democratic, public debate about how scarce municipal tax dollars should be spent.”
We agree with the council and CUPE that water is a human right. And given that Canada has a $31 billion water and sewer infrastructure deficit resulting in, amongst other things, more than 1,500 boil-water orders across the country last year, we also support continued investment in our municipal systems.
Where we draw the line with the council and CUPE is their misguided and misleading attempts to ban the sale of bottled water in public facilities. Bottled water does not compete with tap water. More than 91 per cent of bottled water drinkers consume both. They consume tap water at home and bottled water on-the-go for proper hydration, better health and simple convenience.
Purchasing bottled water does not impact much-needed investments in Canada’s water and sewer infrastructure. Canadians pay local, provincial and federal taxes with the expectation that a portion of those funds will be invested to properly maintain their municipal water systems. They spend their disposable income on a myriad of consumer items, including bottled water.
Thunder Bay council should be commended for exercising critical, independent thinking in the face of an overly-simplified, factually-incorrect, feel-good resolution prepared by the council and CUPE about complex matters that either eliminates future viable policy alternatives or extends well beyond the city’s current legislative authority.
We remain hopeful that the bottled water implications of this matter, once reviewed by staff after consultation with the Canadian beverage industry and other interested stakeholders, will be received by council for information with no further action taken — as was the case four years ago when this matter was last reviewed.
John B. Challinor II
Director of corporate affairs
Nestlé Waters Canada
Guelph, Ont.
My response - i will post the edited version when it's up.
Re: Bottled water bans a union initiative; ‘Misguided and misleading’, March 22 2014 - Letter to the Editor
John B. Challinor II, Nestlé Waters Canada, sir, of course you are going to lay down the union card on this issue, you work for a huge corporation. I'd like to lay down the environmental and dental cards in rebuttal.
Facts: Bottles used to package water take over 1,000 years to bio-degrade and if incinerated, they produce toxic fumes. Recycling is only feasible in limited circumstances because only PET bottles can be recycled. All other bottles are discarded. Only 1 out of 5 bottles are sent to the recycle bin. U.S. landfills are overflowing with 2 million tons of discarded water bottles alone. It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to meet the demand of U.S. water bottle manufacturing. (source: http://thewaterproject.org/bottled_water_wasteful.asp)
I will take my reusable stainless steel water bottle or a glass of water over a discardable plastic bottle any day. Plastic water bottles are unnecessary in most situations, cause way too much waste.
I grew up drinking fluorinated Thunder Bay City water, and later well water in Kakabeka Falls. I never had a cavity, until I was 23 years old, after spending 3 years drinking bottled water in my work place, in Toronto. My dentist told me to start drinking only tap water again (as much as possible). Guess what? I haven't had a cavity since.
It's understandable if you are under a boiled water advisory, or your well water is rusty or full of sulfur. And I do agree with having a supply of water on hand, for emergencies.
But, in order to reduce waste, we also need to recycle, or not even buy an over packaged product to begin with. Let's keep the North as clean as possible in our generation, so that future generations don't have to deal with our legacy of trash.
Bottled water bans a union initiative; ‘Misguided and misleading’
Saturday, March 22, 2014
I read with interest the article that appeared in the March 17 edition of The Chronicle-Journal entitled, Get Back To the Tap . . . Get Off the Bottle.
Thunder Bay council has referred the Blue Communities Project resolution put forward by the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees to staff for a report.
In taking the cautious approach that it did, it appears that council fully recognizes this resolution for what it is: a Trojan horse-like treatise developed solely to encourage Canadian municipalities to ban the sale of bottled water in their facilities under the guise of human rights and infrastructure management.
While Janice Horgos is to be commended for her commitment to environmental sustainability, the Blue Communities Project is not an environmental initiative — it’s a political campaign being waged by CUPE against the Canadian beverage industry and its 13,000 employees across Canada.
CUPE national president Paul Moist acknowledged this in correspondence in various Ontario newspapers when he wrote, “Nestlé spokesperson John Challinor is partly right about CUPE’s joint work with the Council of Canadians on bottled water. The Blue Communities Project is absolutely a political campaign. What could be more appropriate than grassroots activism that invites our elected local representatives to have a democratic, public debate about how scarce municipal tax dollars should be spent.”
We agree with the council and CUPE that water is a human right. And given that Canada has a $31 billion water and sewer infrastructure deficit resulting in, amongst other things, more than 1,500 boil-water orders across the country last year, we also support continued investment in our municipal systems.
Where we draw the line with the council and CUPE is their misguided and misleading attempts to ban the sale of bottled water in public facilities. Bottled water does not compete with tap water. More than 91 per cent of bottled water drinkers consume both. They consume tap water at home and bottled water on-the-go for proper hydration, better health and simple convenience.
Purchasing bottled water does not impact much-needed investments in Canada’s water and sewer infrastructure. Canadians pay local, provincial and federal taxes with the expectation that a portion of those funds will be invested to properly maintain their municipal water systems. They spend their disposable income on a myriad of consumer items, including bottled water.
Thunder Bay council should be commended for exercising critical, independent thinking in the face of an overly-simplified, factually-incorrect, feel-good resolution prepared by the council and CUPE about complex matters that either eliminates future viable policy alternatives or extends well beyond the city’s current legislative authority.
We remain hopeful that the bottled water implications of this matter, once reviewed by staff after consultation with the Canadian beverage industry and other interested stakeholders, will be received by council for information with no further action taken — as was the case four years ago when this matter was last reviewed.
John B. Challinor II
Director of corporate affairs
Nestlé Waters Canada
Guelph, Ont.
My response - i will post the edited version when it's up.
Re: Bottled water bans a union initiative; ‘Misguided and misleading’, March 22 2014 - Letter to the Editor
John B. Challinor II, Nestlé Waters Canada, sir, of course you are going to lay down the union card on this issue, you work for a huge corporation. I'd like to lay down the environmental and dental cards in rebuttal.
Facts: Bottles used to package water take over 1,000 years to bio-degrade and if incinerated, they produce toxic fumes. Recycling is only feasible in limited circumstances because only PET bottles can be recycled. All other bottles are discarded. Only 1 out of 5 bottles are sent to the recycle bin. U.S. landfills are overflowing with 2 million tons of discarded water bottles alone. It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to meet the demand of U.S. water bottle manufacturing. (source: http://thewaterproject.org/bottled_water_wasteful.asp)
I will take my reusable stainless steel water bottle or a glass of water over a discardable plastic bottle any day. Plastic water bottles are unnecessary in most situations, cause way too much waste.
I grew up drinking fluorinated Thunder Bay City water, and later well water in Kakabeka Falls. I never had a cavity, until I was 23 years old, after spending 3 years drinking bottled water in my work place, in Toronto. My dentist told me to start drinking only tap water again (as much as possible). Guess what? I haven't had a cavity since.
It's understandable if you are under a boiled water advisory, or your well water is rusty or full of sulfur. And I do agree with having a supply of water on hand, for emergencies.
But, in order to reduce waste, we also need to recycle, or not even buy an over packaged product to begin with. Let's keep the North as clean as possible in our generation, so that future generations don't have to deal with our legacy of trash.
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