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June 29, 2010
National Capital Region – Ottawa Riverkeeper invites you to be a part of the first ever bottled-water-free Canada Day in the National Capital Region. Riverkeeper and NCC volunteers will be staffing hydration stations around Parliament Hill, Majors Hill Park and Parc Jaques Cartier. These stations will be providing free, filtered, tap water to the over 350,000 visitors expected at this years celebrations.
Ensuring our public festivals provide free, clean, drinking water is an important step in reducing Canadians’ reliance on bottled water, which is over a thousand times more expensive than tap water and is less regulated by health and safety authorities. “Bottled water is one of the most needlessly wasteful products of our time” says Meredith Brown, Ottawa Riverkeeper. “Hopefully, this initiative will inspire people to think about where their water comes from and the steps they can take to better protect our drinking water sources – our lakes, rivers and streams”.
Event Water Solutions CEO Paul Baker, notes that their service provided the equivalent of fifteen thousand bottles of water to the Mariposa Festival in Orillia last year, at a total expense to the municipality of roughly $4. At an average of $1.60 per bottle, they also saved festival goers roughly twenty four thousand dollars!
So when you come downtown this year, make sure to remember your refillable canteen. Together, we can help keep plastic water bottles out of our landfills.
For more information, please contact:
Natasha Wilson
Public Relations
Ottawa Riverkeeper / Sentinelle Outaouais
Office: 613-321-1120 × 3
Mobile: 613-795-1557
nwilson@ottawariverkeeper.ca