Minutes from Toronto community group tackling bottled water industry

For more information on how to participate with this group, email: toronto-community-forum-request@polarisinstitute.org

Toronto Water Committee
1st meeting, Tuesday, 06 November 2007
Scadding Court Community Centre

Attendants:
Patricia Warwick – interested in water issues
George Bartlett – Bloor Street United Church
Mike Layton – Environmental Defence, Program Coordinator – Water Issues (working on
bottled water and water containers)
Susanne Burkhardt – Scadding Court, Community Development
Gev Patel – Scadding Court
Martina Rowley – Chair, and Minute-taker

MINUTES

1. Introductions

2.Recap of outcome and comments from work-groups at the Polaris water forum at Scadding Court on September 22

3.Finding a name for the group: It was decided to defer this but for everyone to think about and share their ideas and suggestions via our e-mail list. Members suggested that it should include reference to “bottled water” or “drinking water”

4.Challenges with promoting tap water over bottled water:
a.Small cafes and vendors sell bottled water as a point of income so it would be difficult to encourage them to stop doing so
b.In gyms, it is more convenient and faster to buy bottled water rather than wait in line at a drinking fountain where those who bring reusable bottles fill up theirs
c.Public drinking fountains are not available in many places; would need to work with the City to install more fountains and keep them maintained

5.Campaign ideas:
a.Start an anti-bottle guerrilla campaign
b.Need to find an idea to counter today’s use of bottled water being a fashion and income statement
c.Should be a subtle campaign that appeals to the subconscious, making it feel ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ to use single-use bottles
d.Come up with an acronym that spells out a negative word, like “B.A.D.”
e.Educational campaign would be effective in addition with other initiatives; The thought is that many people just need reminding/educating to change their habits, as they may be unaware of the environmental/social/political impacts of bottled water from large corporations
f.Offer a public filling station of tap water
g.Promote a “don’t buy any bottled water” day with events, challenges, maybe challenge beverage corporations to promote a “we won’t sell bottled water today”
h.Get university student and faculty groups involved, who often have student bodies lobbying against corporate takeovers already
i.Get community centres involved, with youth groups, and lower-income community members too (who are not so much the group who buy bottled water due to income limits)
j.World Water Day is in March 2008; For this day we could organise an event around bottled water, similar to a “bike to work day”
k.Use images with shock value to educate/wake-up people, e.g. huge pile of empty water bottles; image of hundreds of bottles washing up near Hawaii (recently in the news somewhere). United Way, for example, had a successful promotion on CTV or CityTV on what they’re doing for society and communities. We could do something similar
l.Get Toronto Public Water involved, seeing that they want to promote public water. Engage our CUPE contact (Tim Maguire) to complement the work our group wants to do
m.Campaign name: “BYOB” – bring your own bottle; Teens and young people would probably like this kind of acronym; But could it create negative associations because this acronym is known as bring your own booze?

6.Thoughts on Toronto’s Water Committee:
a.We need to expand the group and have more active individuals to stand any chance of getting anything going; We will need many more members to run efficient campaigns
b.We could perhaps tap into resources from the Toronto Environmental Volunteers group, which is a group set up by the City of Toronto. Contact: Annemarie Baynton, Program Facilitator & TEV Coordinator, abaynto@toronto.ca . Polaris should probably hold another forum & workshops in eastern Toronto to gain some more group members; We could invite some councillors and someone from Toronto Water to speak; And we could announce the next meeting date of the Toronto Water Committee to promote participation

7.Regarding a logo for our group: Mike Layton says, the Wellington Water Watchers have a nice logo, which they told him we could use for a Toronto water group. See www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca

8.Regarding our Meeting Schedule: monthly is too often – maybe every 6 weeks; Now that pre-Christmas season is getting close, we should wait until January with the next meeting.

9.Additional supportive Councillors were named: Joe Mihevc, Joe Pantalone

10.Next Steps:
a.Martina to share meeting Minutes with e-mail list members
b.Martina to make contact with TEV coordinator
c.Andi and Polaris Institute to review and maybe comment on campaign ideas and their further involvement
d.Next meeting date to be determined and announced later
e.EVERYONE: Think about and share with the group via e-mail list any ideas on a name for our group. Something that sounds good as an acronym too.