UVic society turfs bottled water sales from SUB

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Bottled water is no longer available for purchase anywhere in the University of Victoria Student Union Building.

The UVic Students’ Society, following through on a March 2011 referendum, aims to gradually eliminate the sale of bottled water on campus.

“An overwhelming majority of students told us that they wanted to see UVic become a bottled water free campus. We are excited to say ... we have now phased bottled water out of all our business operations and vending machines,” said UVSS chairperson Emily Rogers.

The UVSS referendum was sparked by economical and environmental concerns surrounding the amount of greenhouse gases put out creating and shipping bottled water.

Given the high quality of Greater Victoria drinking water, the UVSS supports increasing infrastructure to access public water.

While the UVSS only has authority over the SUB, they’re pushing the university to come on board and expand the ban campus-wide.

“We had been in talks with UVic to eliminate bottled water at the same time and celebrate this milestone together, but unfortunately they were unable to commit,” Rogers said. “We hope that UVic will follow the lead of other forward-thinking universities in Canada and implement this policy in the very near future.”

Also in March 2011, Saanich council supported a phased ban on bottled water sales in all municipally-owned buildings.

The current contract on municipal vending machines ends in 2014, and by that time Saanich anticipates it will have state-of-the-art water bottle filling stations in all rec centres.

kslavin@saanichnews.com