Benefits of having water on tap

The councils are among 28 across the state to take part in the Netwaste Tap Water Please project to promote the environmental dangers of using plastic water bottles. They also participated in stage two of the project that distributed free re-usable water bottles.

Cabonne and Orange councils have given away all 477 drink bottles in the fortnight that stage two of the program has been running.

“We are very happy with the fact people are starting to think about it a bit,” Netwaste project and administration officer Gillian Kearney said.

“Not everyone will always have tap water but they should use it where they can.”

One reason drink bottles end up in the waste is because people leave their lids on, which can’t be recycled.

The expense of bottled water is also highlighted in the campaign, with an average bottle of water costing around $2.50 a litre compared to around one cent a litre for tap water.

“People are paying for it,” Ms Kearney said.

Australians spent $385 million on 250 million litres of bottled water in 2006.

It was also highlighted that every litre bottle of water purchased uses 200ml of oil and costs $3000 a tonne to produce, while tap water costs $1.20 a tonne.

However, helping the environment and the bank balance is not the only reason people should consume tap water with local dentists backing the benefits of drinking fluoridated town water.

“Definitely tap water over bottled because of the fluoride content,” senior lecturer for Charles Sturt University’s dental program Dr Sabrina Manickam said.

“It is quite an effort to get people to drink tap water, especially children as they tend to take juice and that to school.”

Local dentist Graham McLennan also backed the importance of drinking fluoridated water, particularly for children under the age of 10 who are still developing tooth enamel.

erin.somerville@ruralpress.com