I was recently left scratching my head in amazement when I came across a bottled water label that stressed the product’s “green” qualities. Apparently this special bottle contained less plastic than regular bottles.

Despite green marketing, the fact remains: there is no such thing as environmentally friendly bottled water.

In fact, bottled water sales use vast amounts of fresh water to produce a massive amount of pollution. The good news is that putting a cap on bottled water couldn’t be easier.

While the bottled water industry is still the largest growing sector of the beverage industry, it has not been met without resistance from people concerned about the environment and their health. This school year the University of Winnipeg has started phasing out bottled water sales, citing the importance of water accessibility and the need to reduce waste as reasons for the change.

In March, the Canadian Federation of Municipalities passed a motion to phase out bottled water, and over a year ago London started to phase out bottled water sales in its municipal buildings including community centres and hockey arenas.

The damage caused by bottled water may not seem all that obvious. How can purchasing a simple drink be so harmful? The environmental impact becomes much clearer when you retrace the steps it takes for a bottle of water to find its way to the Western campus, and then think about what happens to the bottle once the drink is finished.

Not only is purchasing water a waste of money, it’s a massive waste of water and petroleum as well. The term “gas guzzling” doesn’t just refer to driving an SUV.

It takes more than one litre of water to produce a one-litre bottle of water because its production is so energy-intensive. Every bottle of water also contains a hidden ingredient — it’s called petroleum. It takes a quarter the volume of a typical water bottle in petroleum to make one bottle of bottled-water. That’s a lot of fuel, and as we all know, burning fuel for unnecessary purposes is far from being green.

Let’s not forget about the additional environmental damage caused by the 18-wheeler trucks that transport the bottles to on-campus pop machines or the local grocery store.

All it takes is a stroll around campus to notice plastic bottles littered all over the ground. Some people who still haven’t figured out how to use the recycling throw empty bottles into garbage bins, where the bottle is destined to sit in a landfill for hundreds of years. Even if a bottle of water gets recycled, that does not undue the environmental damage done to manufacture the product in the first place.

Not to mention that recycling is also a process that burns fossil fuels, although many fail to acknowledge this fact.

Policy changes, like the municipal banning of disposable bottles, reflect a shift in cultural attitudes towards bottled-water and its overall negative impact on people and the Earth. David Suzuki, the famous environmentalist puts it bluntly: “I hope [bottled water] leads to the position that SUVs are acquiring in society, where you look at anyone who hauls out a bottle of water and say, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’”

When it comes to being a leader in environmental causes, banning the sale of bottled water would be a step the right direction for Western. In the meantime, the onus is on students to exercise compassion for Earth and personal responsibility for their actions. It’s as easy as turning on the tap.