Australasian Bottled Water Institute’s chief executive Geoff Parker said: “In deciding to ban bottled water, the university is removing freedom of choice for students and treating them like they were at kindergarten and not a centre for higher learning.
“With Australia ranked fourth in the OECD for obesity, as a society we should be encouraging people to drink more by providing more access to water from any source.
“We question the environmental reasons for the ban,” he added. “Bottled water has the lowest environment footprint of any commercial beverage. The refillable bottles weigh 20 times more than a single-serve 600ml bottle made out of PET, which roughly equates to 20 times the natural resources to produce.
“The anti-industry movement and the University have forgotten the industry’s contribution to communities in need, Canberra included. One can’t actively attack a product like bottled water and then expect it to be there when devastation or a crisis hits.
“The University of Canberra, persuaded by the clever rhetoric from anti-industry campaigners, has the dubious honour of coining a new phrase: ‘nanny territory’. What’s next for the students? Internet filtering and no chocolate bars?”
Source: Australasian Bottled Water Institute
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