McGill announced that it will begin phasing out the sale of single-use plastic water bottles from all food locations and vending machines on campus, with the goal of completely removing them by May 2019.
This initiative was the result of consultations between the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), the MacDonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS), and student stakeholders in November 2017.
Shortly after the ban was announced, the SSMU Environment Committee passed a new Sustainability Policy on March 29 to outline how it will help student clubs and organizations obtain alternative sources of drinking water for their events.
He predicts that the ban will help fulfill McGill’s Vision 2020 Climate and Sustainability Action Plan by lowering the university’s carbon footprint significantly, as each bottle is manufactured and transported using fossil fuels.
Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill’s Office for Science and Society, believes that the university has taken an environmentally responsible step as he explained the process of manufacturing bottled water.
“The university does not benefit from it, society does.
Transporting water is an expensive business because [water] is heavy.
Also, depending on where the water is taken from, you are disrupting the aquifers.
The University of Winnipeg was the first to ban plastic bottles from its campus in 2009.
He cited schools like Washington University in St. Louis, where banning single-use plastic water bottles instead lead to lower soda sales.