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Bottled water is kind of silly. We have some of the cleanest water in the world and an advanced system for delivering it safely to our homes. The regulatory requirements for testing are higher for municipal water – making it safer than any bottle.
The real forehead-slap moment comes with the cost. According to Ottawa Riverkeeper the average price of a glass of water in Ottawa is $0.0001, where the price of a bottle hits an average of $1.06.
During festival season in Ottawa however, getting tap water at festival venues can be challenging.
Ottawa Riverkeeper thinks they have a solution. “In 2009, we partnered with Ottawa Folk Festival to deliver the regions first “bottled-water-free” event” says Natasha Wilson, Ottawa Riverkeeper’s director of Operations and Public Relations in an email to Apartment613. “It’s important for people to have the facts – bottled water is not legally required to meet the same safety standards as tap water, it has devastating long-term impacts on the environment, it’s costly and it’s needlessly wasteful. The Ottawa River provides drinking water for 1,000,000 people in this region and so protecting the river is in everyone’s best interests. Hopefully, this initiative will inspire people to think about where their water comes from and what they can do to help protect their drinking water source.”
Ottawa Riverkeeper is extending their model for bottle-water free events to this year’s Canada Day celebrations.
According to Paul at Event Water Solutions, the company contracted to provide filtered municipal water to the Ottawa Folk Festival and Canada Day celebrations, they were able to save 7600 bottles at the Folk Fest and hope to hit 100,000 on Canada Day. They were also involved the G20 events where according to the company they saved 11500 bottles.
Volunteers from the Ottawa Riverkeeper and the NCC (a partner on the project) will staff water refilling locations across from the US Embassy, at Confederation Park, on Parliament Hill, on Sussex Drive, and at Hull’s Parc Jacques-Cartier.
Bring a bottle with you, refill and stay hydrated. Whatever your beverage of choice happens to be on Canada Day, at least your water doesn’t have to be bottled.