Govt to splash out less on bottled water
LONDON (AFP) — The government said Thursday it is to ban bottled water at meetings and other official business, just weeks after a minister said shunning tap water was morally questionable.
Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell wrote "to the head of every government department suggesting they should replace bought-in bottled water with tap water for all meetings in future," a statement said.
A number of departments, including the environment and business ministries, have already stopped using bottled water at meetings but the new extended policy is expected to come into effect later this year, it added.
"The government is committed to sustainable operations across its estate and I have made this issue one of my key priorities for the civil service," O'Donnell said.
Earlier Thursday, it was revealed that the environment ministry spent 24,744 pounds (32,333 euros, 49,658 dollars) on mineral water in 2006, but slashed that to 3,392 pounds last year.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone, backed by utility firm Thames Water and green groups, launched a blitz against mineral water last month, urging bar, pub and restaurant customers to ask for tap water to help the environment.
He highlighted the cheaper cost of tap water and the fact that it comes without the heavy carbon footprint of transporting bottled varieties by road and often vast distances from as far away as Fiji and New Zealand.
The initiative followed comments to a BBC television documentary by environment minister Phil Woolas attacking on the two-billion-pound (2.6-billion-euro, 3.9-billion-dollar) a year industry.
Woolas said "it borders on morally being unacceptable" for Britons to spend so much on mineral water when there was a worldwide water shortage and while clean drinking water was readily available here.
Industry body the Bottled Water Information Office said the average Briton drinks 37.6 litres of bottled water each year, with six million litres drunk every day.
But it said bottled water accounts for only 0.03 percent of Britain's total carbon emissions, and the industry is committed to more environmentally friendly methods of production, transport and containers.
