Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
The Ottawa Folk Festival will be joining the growing movement to reject bottled water this year. The Council of Canadians and the Ottawa Folk Festival announced last week that this year’s festival will tap into public drinking water instead of selling bottles. The announcement comes on the eve of Springboard, the 2nd annual indoor festival to “Taste Test the Folkfest”, which takes place on April 18th at Library and Archives Canada.
“Working closely with Ottawa Riverkeeper, Council of Canadians, Life Without Plastics, and CUPE 503, we have just learned too much about the importance of supporting public water and doing away with plastic water bottles,” says Julia Adam, Outreach Manager for the Ottawa Folk Festival. “So, we are going for it! Hopefully this effort will inspire audience members, volunteers, artists, and other events to consider making similar changes.”
“By going ‘unbottled’, the Ottawa Folk Festival is playing a leading role in protecting our water services from the growing threats of underfunding and privatization,” says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and senior advisor on water to the President of the UN. “Canada has one of the best drinking water systems in the world, but the bottled water industry has worked hard to undermine our faith in public water. The Ottawa Folk Festival’s decision sends a strong message about the importance of reclaiming water as a public resource.”
“The Council of Canadians believes water is a human right and should be guaranteed to all people regardless of their ability to pay,” adds Barlow, who is also advising the organizers of the Fall 2009 Live Earth concerts. “In Canada, we are not immune to the growing threats of water scarcity. But, the industry sells water – what should be a shared public resource – for huge profits. Producing and transporting bottled water requires large amounts of fossil fuels, and plastic water bottles continue to end up by the millions in local landfills.”