Bottled water: The kids get it!! Nestles Boycott?

Looking at the young generation, I'm feeling great hope after reading this article from the November 14th Globe and Mail.

Message in a water bottle - Eco-savvy schoolkids keep Nestlé in line during Waste Reduction Week

Here's a chilly lesson in how to drown a feel-good public-relations event. At the splashy launch of Waste Reduction Week last month, with VIPs and the media looking on, hundreds of Toronto schoolchildren were given souvenir bags containing a disposable bottle of flavoured water, courtesy of Nestlé Waters Canada, one of the campaign sponsors.

The irony was not lost on Grade 4 and 5 students at Ogden Junior Public, a school near Queen and Spadina.

"I was disgusted by it," 11-year-old Sammy Chorney said of the event organized by the Recycling Council of Ontario. "I was a bit concerned because it was Waste Reduction Week."

Added Alexander Chang, 9, "It didn't make sense to give out those bottles after what we learned from our teacher..."

These kids and their teacher are really on the ball! And timing is everything.

This week, a City of Toronto committee endorsed banning bottled water from city facilities. If council approves the plan in December, civic centres will stop selling bottled water immediately and other city properties will stop selling it in three years.

The Toronto District School Board is considering banning bottled-water sales on school property...

As readers of this blog are aware, OPSEU is in the process of phasing out bottled water, including water coolers, at its offices, facilities and events. Here's one reason.

About 35 million polyethylene water bottles end up in Toronto landfill sites each year, and an additional 65 million are recycled.

Not only were the kids perplexed and angered by the freebie, but they're taking action into their own hands.

Mr. Shouldice's students fired off polite, pointed letters to the recycling council, its corporate sponsors, and the two government officials, Mr. Gerretsen and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, who were present...

Other students raised the prospect of a boycott. "We included in our letters that if they didn't reply by Dec. 10, we'll never buy Nestlé products again," declared Alyanna Royce, Grade 4.

Jada Burrell, Grade 5, reminded her friend that Nestlé also makes candy, including Smarties. Alyanna thought about that. "I love Smarties," she said. "We just won't eat them."