Drinking Water for Public Events

Rebekah

You may want to check out www.wearemanyfestival.com

We are Many was a free festival put on in Saskatoon last summer focused around living sustainably. Up to 15,000 people attended over 4 days (hard to tell, due to it being free and multiple access points) and not a single bottle of water was sold. A water tanker was present on site and several water stations with water cooler jugs. Volunteers filled the jugs from the tanker when needed. It worked out very well. There is a final report link from this website which may provide you with some guidance for putting on similar events.

Cheers
Alina

Alina Siegfried
Water Issues Coordinator
Saskatchewan Environmental Society
Canada
www.environmentalsociety.ca

Rebekah,

Why not work WITH your Public Works department to promote their safe water and purchase "City" owned water cooler unit(s). Make them available to event organizers (free to discourage barriers about extra costs). On them you can prominently say - the water in this jug is supplied directly from the City of Vaughn's treated water. If the responsibility and safety risk is a barrier then arrange to have bottles filled by City staff and delivered (and picked up) by City staff. It's still cheaper and less of a foot print than the Waste Management folks dealing with single bottle pick up.

Judy  Gilchrist
consultant
The Moraine. For Life
Canada

Hi Ian,

Thanks for your comments.
Our Engineering and Public Works folks do a fantastic job keeping our water safe and drinkable - that is not the issue. The issue is more about how we can discourage people from using single use PET bottles at events that are NOT serviced by the municipal water supply (while, of course, ensuring their safety if we are recommending a private company come in and supply water). If we had drinking fountains at all venues we would have an easy answer.
I believe it is a challenge we will continue to face and we will have to come up with some viable options.

Rebekah Mcgurran
Economic Developer - Environmental Sector
City of Vaughan
Canada

Hi Rebekah,
You're with the city of Vaughan? Talking to your water supply engineers, I would hope you'd get the response "a suitable alternative would be tap water that we already provide to most dwellings in the city". The city should already be ensuring that city water is clean and safe to drink, shouldn't it? City water supply is subject to more stringent water-quality testing than bottled water in any case, so this issue might be a red herring, one that is planted in the public's mind by the marketers of bottled water around the developed world.

My second thought is to ask where you are holding the event(s). Does the venue have drinking water fountains or city water plumbed in already? If so, speaking to the venue managers to see if glasses/beakers, jugs, etc. can be sourced/rented/bought by the city for future event use might be a suggestion.

If this is an outdoor event that's a long way from a building with a city water supply, I'm stumped for ideas right now!

Ian Rowberry
Campus Sustainability Initiative
Canada