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*Last week, Toronto City Council voted to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on all municipal premises from City Hall to golf courses by 2011. The ban will be effective immediately at City Hall and civic centres. *
In addition, the council announced it would introduce a CAN$0.5 charge on plastic shopping bags; ban biodegradable and compostable plastic bags; ban retail bags with rope handles or metal grommets by the end of next year; and request retailers to provide shoppers with alternatives to having to pay for a plastic bag, whether by providing cardboard boxes or paper sacks for shoppers.
Stuart Green, spokesman for Toronto Mayor David Miller, told reporters that the new packaging reduction by-laws are part of the city's goal to achieve 70% waste diversion from landfill by 2010.
He also said the city would be upgrading drinking fountains to provide easy access to drinking water.
In response to the ban, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) provided the following statement:
"The City of Toronto’s ban on the sale of bottled water in city-owned buildings is a misguided attempt at addressing a municipal waste issue. This measure will reduce the city’s waste by a mere fraction of 1%, while it deprives its citizens of making a healthy beverage choice.
"'City customers who, in the past, have picked up a bottle of water to drink while standing in line to pay for permits or taxes will now be forced to quench their thirst with less healthy beverages, which are packaged in a denser grade of plastic at twice the volume of bottled water," said IBWA Vice President Communications, Tom Lauria.
"With the incidence of diabetes, obesity and heart disease on the rise, any actions or misinformation that would discourage consumers from drinking a safe, healthy product are not in the public interest," he added.
"Bottled water is just one of thousands of consumer goods that are packaged in plastic containers, and any efforts to reduce environmental impact of packaging must focus on all consumer goods and not target just one industry.
"While much needs to be done to improve recycling rates, bottled water containers make up only 0.3% of the entire municipal waste stream. Clearly, bottled water containers are not making the significant contribution to our landfills as environmental activists claim.
"Bottled water packaging is 100% recyclable. A growing number of bottled water producers have introduced much lighter weight bottles and using recycled material in their packaging."
Mr Lauria said it was ironic that while recycling rates needed to improve, demand for recycled single-serve plastic PET was at an all-time high, and the US was currently facing a national shortage of recycled PET, which is used to manufacture carpeting, fleece, decking and auto parts.
"Last year, the US had to resort to importing recyclable PET from South America to meet manufacturers’ demand,” said Mr Lauria.
"The City of Toronto would be better off focusing its efforts on enhanced recycling programs rather than restricting people to making healthy beverage choices."