Big Dogs Weblog

Mayor Newsom Bans Bottled Water

by Big Dog on Jun 23, 2007 at 23:29 Uncategorized

In an effort to reduce global warming and to reduce the number of plastic bottles in landfills, Mayor Newsom of San Francisco has banned departments from buying bottled water, even for water coolers. Employers can certainly decide if they will purchase water or not so long as they can provide hydration for workers exposed to heat strain as part of their jobs. Newsom plans to have municipal tap water. This provides it own problems such as sanitation of storage containers (have you ever seen one at a work site.

Regardless, if the intent is to reduce the number of plastic bottles, why ban the ones for water coolers? Those bottles are reused so they do not end up in landfills and they are manufactured as needed. In any event, this seems to be a boneheaded move because employees are still free to purchase their own bottled water and take it to work with them. Many might opt for this rather than drinking tap water (which is not a bad thing) from potentially dirty dispensing containers (which is a bad thing).

I suppose this might allow Newsom to create a whole new department that ensures sanitation of the water dispensers. However, what he is doing is within his purview as Mayor so long as the needs of the workers are met with regard to hydration and sanitation, it really does not matter where the water comes from. I will say that my experience is that workers will shun tap water from Igloo type dispensers as “not tasting good” and there will probably be an increase in heat related illness or an increase in bottles bought by employees. A case is only about $4.00. This will certainly not reduce the number of plastic bottles (which could be recycled, what a novel idea).

I am sure that there is more to this than global warming and my experience tells me it is a cost cutting move. Bottled water is not cheap and I imagine the workforce in San Francisco is quite large so they consume quite a bit of the bottled beverage.

Kind of ironic that a city in the state that made carrying a bottle of water the chic thing to do is banning the practice.

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Tags: Commentary