DO YOU STILL BUY BOTTLED WATER?

Nowadays, at many schools and offices, people are encouraged to use refillable bottles for water instead of singleuse plastic bottles. Those plastic bottles make up most of the plastic litter in landfills and also in the oceans. Although it is a recent trend to use refillable bottles, a town in Australia banned the sale of bottled water over 10 years ago.

Bottled water became popular in the 1980s. (1)... . Parents started to buy bottled water to their children to take school instead of fizzy drinks or fruit juices that had lots of chemicals in them. Yet, in time it was seen that plastic bottles not only clutter landfills but also require great amounts of energy to produce them.

Bundanoon is a small town in Australia. Their battle with bottled water began when a beverage country announced that they have plans to build a plant in town. (2)... . People in the town were against it because the company would carry to water to Sydney to bottle it up and then sell it back to them. After learning about these plans, residents of the town started a campaign to ban the sale of bottled water in their town.

They held a meeting in July 2009 in the town hall. 350 residents gathered in a room to vote the ban. Except for two of them, they all agreed that the sale of bottled water should be banned in their town. (3)... . The other one said that he was concerned that the ban on bottled water may cause people to drink sugary beverages again.

Since that day no one has been able to go to a supermarket and buy bottled water. Residents of the town say that they are very happy with the ban. (4)... . They are happy that they produce less waste as a town and help save the environment.