Aussie town bans bottled water sales
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SYDNEY - Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first community in the country - and possibly the world - to take such a drastic step in the growing backlash against the industry.
Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia’s beverage industry in one day: Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments from buying bottled water.
“It’s time for people to realize they’re being conned by the bottled water industry,’’ said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the campaign.
Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organizer of Corporate Accountability International’s “Think Outside the Bottle’’ campaign in the United States. The Boston-based nonprofit has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water.
