Lady LUX

LUXies, as we know one voice matters and in this small town outside of Sydney, Australia they are determined to make a ‘huge splash’ in the eco-movement by coming together to become the ‘first environmentally water conscience town.’

The Australian country town, Bundanoon, has put themselves on the ‘green-radar’ with this newly implemented ban against plastic water bottles. Which makes them the first community to take such drastic action in Australia and quite possibly in the world!!

As of this past week, about 350 local people, including business owners who might be negatively affected by this ban, have come together to honor their natural water source, by actually outlawing the sale of bottled water in their community. The aim was to promote the use of their local water and to actively cut down the ‘waste’ of the plastic bottle.

In order to implement this new ban, local businesses will no longer sell bottled water, but reusable containers instead. They will also partner with ‘Bottled Water Alliance,’ ‘Street Furniture Australia,’ and ‘Culligan Water’ to install water stations throughout the town, allowing for easy access to easy drinking water.

To pass this initiative, a campaign called ‘Bundy On Tap’ was created to help bring to light the true impact of bottled water on the environment. Most of us are aware of the excess garbage created by plastic bottles, but many might not be aware of the environmental impact on carbon emissions in the production and distribution processes!!

Initially, Bundanoon was motivated to create this campaign due to a bottling service company who wanted to come to town and filter the local water from their community, only to turn around and sell it as individualized bottled water. When the community heard of this, they decided that they would research more on the bottled water industry and define the facts from the fiction. Bringing to light many of the ‘unseen’ implications drinking bottled water has on the environment and the cost factors involved, the community realized that Australia was a huge consumer of bottled drinking and most of it was coming from their natural sources!! The campaign wanted to remind people of a time before bottled water was even widely available and encourages people around the world to ‘think beyond the bottle.’ To learn more about the impact of bottled water, read ‘Energy Implications of Bottled Water.’

Bundanoon is not alone in their efforts to address the cost factor of bottled water. ‘At least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom’ have joined to reduce taxpayer dollars on not investing in bottled water service at their meetings, according to Deborah Lapidus, the organizer of Corporate Accountability International’s ‘Think Outside the Box’ campaign in the U.S.

“I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognizing that there’s safe drinking water coming out of our taps,” says Lapidus.

Now some were against this initiative, including a representative of the water industry, saying that this initiative might increase people to drink more unhealthy sugar drinks; although, as you see LUXies the opposition was outvoted by the majority.

So what do you think LUX Nation? Is this something you would have agreed to pass in your town?? Are you willing to make changes in your lifestyle to help the environment on a day-to-day basis?

Tagged in: australia, bottled water ban, bundanoon community, culligan water, bottled water alliance, street furniture australia, eco-movement,