JENNIFER LEE, New York Times, June 17, 2008 - The City Council has become the latest government agency to take a stand against bottled water.
Last week, the speaker’s office announced that it would stop buying bottled water for the Council’s downtown offices, which went through at least 6,000 single-serving bottles last year. As a result, bottled water will no longer be available at City Council events or official functions.
“We are obviously going to make paper cups available,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker. “We are going to urge people to bring in their own reusable water bottles.”
In addition, the city has started a pilot program with water coolers that use filtered tap water. Nine of the coolers have been installed in the last six months at City Hall and in the Municipal Building.
“It is a bit hypocritical for the city to be buying bottled water for city buildings while it is encouraging New Yorkers to drink city tap water,” said Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn councilman who pressed the cooler issue at budget hearings.
These small shifts come as the United States Conference of Mayors, meeting this weekend in Miami, plans to debate a resolution urging city governments across the country to do the same.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a co-sponsor of the resolution, is a self-professed consumer of New York City tap water.
“Not only at home, but at every restaurant. Every time they say, ‘Would you like tap or still?’ I say, ‘New York City,’ ” Mr. Bloomberg said on Monday. “This is the best water in the world. Restaurants like to sell bottles of water, I understand, but I always drink tap water.”
New York is just one of a number of cities that have moved to limit bottled water because of environmental and cost concerns. Bottled water costs 4,000 to 10,000 times as much as tap water, according to the Think Outside the Bottle environmental campaign. The plastic bottles, while recyclable, often end up in landfills. In addition, petroleum is consumed in producing and transporting them.
In June 2007, San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, prohibited spending city money on single-serving bottled water. Now, more than 30 cities and towns in the United States and Canada — from Fayetteville, Ark., to Seattle to Blue Mountains, Ontario — have taken steps to curtail spending on bottled water, according to Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group that challenges corporate abuses and which runs the Think Outside the Bottle campaign.
In some cases — for example, not buying a case of bottled water at the local market to have at town functions — the impact of such pledges is relatively modest against a $10 billion-a-year national industry. But in some places, the measures include eliminating contracts for bottled water that are worth several hundred thousand dollars over several years; stopping sales by government cafeterias and vending machines; and even declaring an outright ban on the consumption of any bottled water in government buildings (as is the case in Blue Mountains).
“This was a way to lead by example,” said Dan Coody, the mayor of Fayetteville and a co-chairman of the Conference of Mayors’ Water Council. “When people complain about buying $4-a-gallon gasoline but buy $7-a-gallon drinking water, I think that disconnect needs to be recognized.”
In addition to Mayor Bloomberg, the sponsors of the bottled water resolution include the mayors of some of the largest cities in the United States, including Chicago, Miami, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
The resolution “encourages cities to phase out, where feasible, government use of bottled water and promote the importance of municipal water.” (However, the officials emphasized that cities would still be able to buy bottled water for emergencies.) Mr. Coody said the resolution was widely expected to pass.
The movement, however, has raised concern in the beverage industry. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association have all increased their lobbying against it. Last year, Coca-Cola and the association passed out fliers at the Conference of Mayors that argued against a resolution, introduced by Mayor Newsom, to study the impact of bottled water on municipal waste.
“It’s myopic and shortsighted — it’s like banning rope until you need a lifeline,” said Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the association. “We’re not trying to compete with tap water here. We are trying to supplement the water available to consumers.”
Patrick McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, N.C., the site of a large Coca-Cola bottling plant, worked with the beverage association to introduce a rival resolution for the mayors’ conference that emphasized maintaining the nation’s water infrastructure and the importance of recycling.
“Our focus needs to be on keeping our water clean and safe and using it in an efficient manner,” Mr. McCrory said. “If someone has a bottled water as opposed to much more destructive drinks, I think that is progress.”
In April, representatives from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the beverage industry pressed their case with Laurel Lunt Prussing, the mayor of Urbana, Ill., who sits on a conference committee that deals with water issues.
“Their argument was: Why pick on us? We are only a small part of the waste stream, and we are selling a healthful product,” Ms. Prussing said. “I told them I was really a tough sell.”
She got her start in politics by writing a bottle recycling bill for the Illinois Legislature.
Fernanda Santos contributed reporting.