ottawa foodies

www.cbc.ca

.... and here is what Ottawa Councilers are saying:

Link ---> www.cbc.ca <---

Don't disposable diapers fill up the landfills more than plastic water bottles ?

Don't I see water bottles at the City Council meetings on Rogers Channel 22 ?

It's a funny fickle world we live in.

Captain C - OK, as I have well established here in the past I never got all the noise about bottled water and recycling... because I recycle... but I do understand that statistically I am in a small minority (but alas of it is banned, that is something I'd have to live with).

As for Disposable Diapers, I shudder to think what is in my local landfill. And to think that those same Ottawa Councilers when considering the Green Bins chose not to follow Toronto's example and have those same Diapers end up in the Bin... evidently they didn't have the stomach for it. So for years to come, our landfills will be overflowing with these disease incubators... talk about a "sh!tty" cop-out by City Council.

Whether or not the bottles are recycled is right at the bottom of the very long list of concerns over bottled water. I therefore also do not understand all the fuss about recycling.

A few more important concerns :
- privatization of water supply (what's next, air?)
- wasting huge amounts of fossil fuel to transport
- tap water is plentiful, cheaper, and meets much higher standards

And as for diapers - paying to recycle them is throwing good money after bad. Tax the hell out of them. People should be using cloth diapers. The disposable diapers are in and of themselves the problem, not how they get disposed of. Tax each an every one of them at the point of sale, with tax payable to the municipality in which they were sold.

We already have a massively expensive system for dealing with human waste. It's called the sewer system. We don't need a parallel system for people who are too lazy and thoughtless to care less. Hey, I'm lazy and thoughtless in my own ways too. But every single one of them I have to pay for out of my own pocket, which is exactly what users of disposable diapers should have to do. Not out of my pocket.

The headline is a little misleading, as the article makes clear:

"Toronto may ban the sale of bottled water on city premises"

I'm not sure how much of an impact this will have. I make my bottled water purchases at the supermarket, not City Hall.

Yes, I purposely chose a sensational headline and was waiting to see if anyone would notice that ollie :-)

London Ontario has already done it. I don't think the question is "how many bottles of water do you buy at City Hall", but how often do you buy a drink at the library, park, local beach, city-owned theatre (ie. Centrepointe in Ottawa), or recreational centre? For the thousands of municipal government employees, it means finding a new way to get their water (heaven forbid they drink from taps!) Which, for me (a City of Ottawa employee), means fighting someone for the drinking fountain near my workstation!

DISCLAIMER: I'm definitely not a hydrological engineer, nor am I a public health guru.

I know a lot of people buy bottled water for the taste as well as the convenience. Is there the potential to change our water treatment regime so that the tap water doesn't taste like you're licking a pool puck?

(Euro-superiority alert!): When we were in Switzerland a couple of months ago, the friend of ours who we were staying with commented on how awesome the tap water was, and she was right.

Now, I know that in a lot of places the sanitation standards are higher for municipal water than they are for bottled water, here included. The difference is that, in Zürich, the water tasted great.

Is there anything keeping us from switching over to their system? A quick wikipedia browse leads me to assume that the water in Zürich is ozonated, rather than chlorinated, but I could be wrong.

You can always just use a Brita filter to dechlorinate. Personally I drink rihgt from the tap and don't taste the Chloramine. We don't use Chlorine in Ottawa, we use Chloramine which is used in much lower concentrations.

Perhaps at the next wine tasting y'all can do a double-blind water tasting as well, to see if anyone really notices a difference. I'll be happy to post details on how to run a double-blind test if there is interest

Zym - I bought a Brita filter when I moved to London, since their water's even more chlorine-y than it is here. I really should have a small Brita at work, too, but I don't. The taste is definitely different here compared to what it is at my house, post-filtration.

That having been said, a double-blind water tasting would be awesome. I'm all for science.

"I don't think the question is "how many bottles of water do you buy at City Hall", but how often do you buy a drink at the library, park, local beach, city-owned theatre (ie. Centrepointe in Ottawa), or recreational centre?"

Of course I was being over-the-top for the sake of style but to answer your question... still zero.

I've been using Brita filters for years and the water tastes just fine. Although now I'm curious to have myself a glass straight out of the tap to see if it does indeed taste like a pool puck. Will report back this evening.

I think the idea is ollie, that if city hall starts it, then what about other city facilities, like schools? Schools are a big one since a lot of them have contracts with Coke and Pepsi.

I don't notice the chloramine here at all. But when I got to see my parents in London, I smell it, I taste it, I feel it in the shower. It's just gross. I've actually gone swimming in my neighbour's pool (salt water) to get the chlorine off, right after having a shower.

Ok, I'll be the one not explicitly protecting mother nature here. If they remove bottled water, but leave the machines full of soft drinks have we really solved anything? Bottles aside, will people buy a Coca Cola instead if they are thirsty and making a drink run to the machine? I think that perhaps the problems here are separate. Zym is totally right that bottling water is not a very good use of resources. But this problem is the same as any bottled beverage. But as a public space, are the drink consumption needs of the public being served by removing water? I think part of the problem with this dual situation is that the 'one' solution will not address both problems. Each needs it's solution to be addressed specifically for it. A friend of mine walked the Camino de Santiago Trail, and wrote a book about it. He tells the story of a village, where during the local wine festival there is innocuous spigot sticking out of a stone wall near the town square. The spigot serves local wine for anyone who brings a glass to fill it. Maybe we need more public wine (beer?) spigots?

You are right Pete - depends what people will do if there is no bottled water. If they turn to the tap, then it helps. If they turn to coke, then not so much. Though it does help in the sense that we are no longer privatizing our water resource. So it does still help some.

Public spigot? Hmmmm. Clearly you've never been to one of my parties :-)

Oh, I'm not saying that people won't buy other bottle beves: I'm possibly the worst for it, in fact. The City of London did a study which showed that 60% of the people buying bottled water would find other bottled things to buy...and bearing in mind that many public spaces have contracts with Coke/Pepsi to fulfill, they will find other things to fill the machines with.

Take for example, Carleton University: They have a contract through Aramark with Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola decided in the early 1990s to remove all the fountains. Not all of them went but a very, very large number of them, so much so that I think I have them all mapped out in my agenda. A wine spigot is not that different from a drinking fountain.

In Germany, there is a pfand--deposit--on every bottle, can, jar in the store. And it's not small either. And the bottles are easy to deposit. Oh, and they're made with hard plastic, so they can be reused. My host family shook their fists menacingly the day that I didn't bring home my Apfelschorle bottles (help, German speakers...how do I explain Apfelschorle? Fizzy water and apple juice?).

Like Pete-In-Ottawa was saying, the spigots for people who brought their glasses: In Germany, at festivals, you can put a deposit on a glass that you use for the whole festival, or bring your own. When I was downtown over Canada Day, I saw so many plastic beer cups it made me want to scream. Instiuting a deposit program for special events might be a feasible plan.

Either way, I don't think that banning bottled water is the only solution, but providing more drinking fountains might be.

Zym: never been invited ;-)

Rectified ;-)

lady who brunches, Apfelschorle sounds an awful lot like what the Swiss call "Süssmost" (lit. "sweet cider"). It's a non-alcoholic cider, basically carbonated apple juice. Very refreshing on a hot day.

No, Schorle is fruit juice mixed with carbonated water. That's all I drink ever since living in Germany, though mostly I just use tap water. Not very often I get inspired enough to make a keg of carbed water. I use 1 part juice to 2 parts water.

It's the drink of choice when hiking in the Alps. Very refreshing, and actually better for you than just juice because juice is too thick and syrupy. Schorle gets the electrolytes moving for you where juice does not.

Ah! We have drinks like that in Switzerland too, but they're more likely to be diluted berry syrups. My mom used to bottle this at home, cooking blackberries down to a syrup with sugar and red wine, straining through cheesecloth and then bottling the concentrate. Then we'd mix it with still or sparkling water to make a refreshing drink! Also excellent drizzled over ice cream.

You can buy similar syrups (blackberry, blueberry, cassis) at the European Delicatessen European Delicatessen (look on the shelves against the window in the deli section, right across from the cashier). Much cheaper and healthier than pop or kool aid.

Oh God now I'm craving Ribena. This thread is off the rails in a delicious way.

And I a Kir Royale...

Fresh Foodie - Thanks for the tip on the fruit syrups from The European Deli.