Hillside Festival Makes Move to Do Away With Plastic Bottles

Posted June 13, 2007 in [Water]

Doug Hallett, Jun 8, 2007, Guelph Tribune - If Hillside Festival organizers have their way, plastic water bottles won't be a common sight at this year's late July festival on Guelph Lake Island.

Instead of selling plastic water bottles again this year, the festival is making plans to sell stainless steel water bottles with the Hillside logo on them, and to bring in tankers to supply free water for refilling those bottles.

"Our hope is to be able to provide potable water for patrons through tankers," festival manager Rachel Thompson said this week.

"We haven't finalized anything, but that is what we are moving towards."

She said Hillside is drawing upon the expertise of Wellington Water Watchers, an organization that's been fighting Nestle's application for a five-year renewal of its permit to draw up to 3.6 million litres of groundwater a day for its water bottling plant in Aberfoyle. Wellington Water Watchers has been promoting stainless steel, refillable bottles as an alternative to water sold in plastic bottles.

Wellington Water Watchers "will be somehow involved with the festival in a water distribution way," Thompson said.

However, Hillside's move away from plastic water bottles isn't linked to the controversy over Nestle's application for the permit renewal, she said in an interview. Instead, the motivation is to reduce plastic waste on the Hillside site, she said.

"It has always been a priority at Hillside to lessen our impact" on the environment, she said, and the heat advisory in effect during last summer's festival focused attention on how much water was consumed there and how much plastic waste was created.

In recent years, Hillside has sold bottled water at its information booth, and water in plastic bottles has also been sold by the festival's food vendors.

This year, the intention is to have Hillside instead sell stainless steel bottles, while allowing vendors to continue to sell water in plastic bottles if they want to, said Thompson.

It's meant to be a "really strong attempt" to cut plastic waste, she said, but some plastic water bottles might still be used by the festival.

For example, festival volunteers working in remote areas of the park might still be supplied with plastic water bottles. "We have to make sure our volunteers are hydrated."

As well as selling stainless steel bottles, the festival will encourage patrons to bring their own refillable bottles from home, she said.

Nicholas Dalton, a Hillside board member, has strongly pushed for the change. The 7,640 bottles of water bought by Hillside for last year's festival and the additional water bottles sold by festival vendors or brought from home by patrons created a "ridiculous" amount of plastic waste at the festival, said Dalton.

He emphasized that the change isn't related to the Nestle controversy.

"I am not making a political statement," said Dalton.

"I'm making an environmental statement" in pushing for Hillside to move away from plastic water bottles, he said in an interview Thursday.