YFS promotes campus-wide bottled water ban
Following in the footsteps of Toronto’s Ryerson University, York University’s student union has introduced a “Bottled Water Free Campus” campaign in hopes of eventually phasing out the use of plastic bottles on campus.
Yusuf Mohamed, vice president of equity of the York Federation of Students (YFS), said the water is a basic human right.
“We do not want to commodify the sale of bottle d water,” said Mohamed.
“We want to provide students with access to clean public drinking water.”
Mohamed noted that the YFS speci cally wants to phase out the sales of bottled water on campus.
“We cannot wake up and do it tomorrow,” said Mohamed. “But we are working closely with the senior ad-administration and [...] they agree with us in building the infrastructure required to have accessible, clean public water.”
When asked if banning water bottles on campus would take away the choice from the students, Mohamed answered, “In terms of choice, what it really boils down to is students can either save the environment or buy bottled water.”
YFS started the campaign together with the Canadian Federation of Student (CFS), which provides them with the campaign materials.
“ There are social and environmental impacts [that come] from bottled water,” said Sandy Hudson, chair of CFS-Ontario.
She noted that corporations that control the bottled water industry use the media to perpetuate the myth that “water isn’t safe unless it is bottled […] when in fact, the safest water does come from our taps.”
According to the YFS campaign posters around campus, bottled water products are frequently recalled by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) due to bacterial chemical contaminants.