Bottled Water Free Day was celebrated March 10 on campuses and at government buildings across Canada, but at the University of King’s college, March 10 was just another day. That’s because King’s has become the first university campus in Nova Scotia to go entirely bottled water free, every day.
Vice President of the King’s Student Union, Gabe Hoogers, said the transition was fluid. “Everyone has been super helpful and cooperative.”
Bottled Water Free Day is an event to raise awareness of corporate privatization of water, which, according to the UN, is a basic human right. “The point is that corporations shouldn’t be able to package water up the price two hundred times,” Hoogers explained. “It’s largely unregulated; the bottled water might be unsafe, there’s no way of knowing.”
The project was initiated by the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Sierra Youth Coalition, Development & Peace and the Polaris Institute.
Eleven campuses and many municipal and provincial governments have now begun to recognize Bottled Water Free Day every day, offering tap water instead of bottles at events and lectures, and taking bottled water out of vending machines.
For now, though, the usual bottled juices and pops will still be available to buy from campus vending machines. “It’s all about the water,” he said, not the bottle it comes in.
As an initiative more against water privatization than lazy recycling, Hoogers admitted that the juice bottle question has been coming up more than he expected. “I didn’t know there was such a push against the bottles, I think people like juice! We’re keeping the juice for now.”
Instead, he says, “We promote the benefits of having a right to public safe drinking water.” As students continue to stand up for public drinking water, the hope is that at some point, drinking water will no longer be a corproate cause.
The website, bottledwaterfreeday.ca offers the chance to take the pledge against personal use of bottled water, along with ways to get your organization involved.
