Getting Good Mileage in Kingston

October 30th the newly active Kingston Archdiocesan Council hosted a campaign workshop at the diocesan centre in Kingston.  The council was very happy with the turnout - twenty more drops added to our river of justice. Congratulations to all who helped make it a success!

A most interesting exchange happened as Belleville participants asked those gathered what could be done about their tap water, which has a pretty bad reputation.  Many choose bottled water because of this.  Another participant from Kingston related how his city had made large investments in filtration systems to improve the quality of the tap water.  Could Belleville get their leaders to talk to folks from Kingston for ideas he wondered?  Also, KFL&A Public health has a new initiative called Tap into Kingston. The initiative aims  at promoting tap water and includes a map of local businesses, convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants, and cafes that let people in the community fill their reusable water bottle with great tasting tap water.

The discussion highlighted for me the importance of how the D&P pledge is worded.  The pledge stresses support for Public Water utilities before it talks about choosing tap water over bottled water.  An integral part of choosing the tap is to protect it. If you want to know about your area's tap water, the provincial government has a good website to do some research.

During the workshop we collect creative ideas about how to communicate facts about water taken from our action sheet.  One of my favourites: An Announcement could be made at mass that, due to health & safety concerns, all Holy Water in the church will be replaced by bottled water.  As a result, you must place a penny in a jar each time you bless yourself in an effort to off-set the cost.

That Saturday I travelled about 500KM. I was struck by a thought en route home as I filled up at  a road-side gas station: how much would it cost me if I was filling my tank with bottled water instead of gas? It had already been pointed out to me that bottled water is more expensive than gas.  When I got home I did some math.  My bill at that station was $30.89 for 31.045L (.995/L HST inc)  The McDonalds right by my office sells Dasani for 1.79/500ml plus tax.  By my calculations, if I had filled my gas tank up with Dasani bottled water it would have cost me $128.58.  Ouch.  

Fill the car with gas.

Fill the car with Dasani