from Sunday Herald, 23 March 2008
Bottled water is to be banned at Scottish government events as part of a bid to ‘go greener’ and protect the environment.
Ministers have told the Sunday Herald that bottles of still water will no longer be provided at meetings hosted on government premises in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Instead, the water will come from the mains.
Last year the government spent £62,028 buying 55,384 500ml bottles of still water for hospitality events at Victoria Quay, St Andrews House and four other buildings. But this is now regarded as polluting and wasteful.
“We are committed to being as environmentally responsible as possible, in line with our greener Scotland strategic objective,” said a Scottish government spokesman.
“From this spring, we will be replacing bottled still water with chilled water provided through the filtration mains system as part of the hospitality provided in our buildings.”
This would cut vehicle mileage, and hence pollution, because fewer journeys will have to be made to collect and deliver bottled water, the spokesman argued. “While all bottles used under our catering contract are recycled, this move will also help reduce the amount of waste produced by the Scottish government.”
The move was welcomed by the Green MSP Robin Harper. “This will reduce government's impact on the environment and the cost to taxpayers,” he said.
“We will be pressing ministers to extend this approach across the whole of Scotland’s public sector, and to go beyond it to consider how they can eliminate waste from their operations altogether.”
Next in line should be Holyrood, Harper argued. “The Scottish Parliament should follow their lead and eliminate the bottled water they use in committee rooms and the chamber,” he said.
Earlier this month the Cabinet secretary in London, Sir Gus O’Donnell, announced a ban on bottled water at UK government events, starting in the summer. "A number of departments have already stopped using bottled water for official meetings but the proposal is to extend the 'tap water only policy' throughout government departments," said a cabinet office statement.
The Treasury also let it be known that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, sipped only tap water during his long budget speech two weeks ago. His predecessor, Gordon Brown, now the Prime Minister, used to drink bottled water.
No-one from the British Bottled Water Producers was available to comment on Friday.
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