/Barry pushes for plastics reduction 

Barry pushes for plastics reduction 

Barry pushes for plastics reduction 

 

By Chad Ingram

Published Feb. 28, 2019 

 
Algonquin
Highlands Councillor Lisa Barry would like to see the township use less
plastic by gravitating away from plastic water bottles to reusable
vessels instead. 
 
“The environment
committee has been pretty big advocates of trying to decrease the amount
of plastic water bottles, and since we do have drinking water access
points in the township, I wonder if there’s room for the township to
sell, or use, reusable water vessels,” Barry said during a Feb. 20
budget meeting, indicating that perhaps such containers could be sold at
locations such as trails offices or the Stanhope airport. “I see it as
an expense, but potentially revenue as well.” 
 
“My
gut reaction wold be not to be selling something like that,” said
Deputy Mayor Liz Danielsen, who chaired the meeting in absence of Mayor
Carol Moffatt. “I would be more apt to see us encourage, somehow,
supplying or making sure our own people have reusable vessels.” 
 
“We
have explored that and are continuing to,” said chief administrative
officer Angie Bird. “It’s a challenge, there’s no question. If you
provide that to your workers, there’s nothing to ensure that they bring
them to work.” 
 
Councillor Jennifer Dailloux said the gym she goes to has instituted a no one-time use plastics policy. 
“And
after a short period of time, people figured it out and adapted to it
and they bring in their own water bottles,” Dailloux said. 
 
Bird
said she wouldn’t want to put staff who may forget water at a health
and safety risk, especially during the hot summer months. She said the
township could probably reduce, but likely not completely eliminate, its
use of plastic water bottles. 
“It would take some time to implement,” she said. 
 
Public
works director Adam Thorn said he had looked into it for staff, and the
cost would likely be $20 to $30 for personal industrial-sized water
bottles. 
“The trouble that I’ve run
into with this research is, like Angie said, what do we do if somebody
forgets a water bottle at home?” Thorn said. “It can very easily happen .
. . we’d still have to carry cases of water with us.”  
Thorn
also posited that public works employees may end up spending a lot of
time going back and forth to refill their water bottles. 
“I
think the best practice that I wanted to move forward into this year
was making sure that all staff have the ability to recycle that, that
they’re being proactive, that they’re not leaving the bottles in the
trucks,” Thorn said. 
 
Treasurer Tammy
McKelvey also pointed out that it may be unrealistic to expect the
township’s firefighters to remember to take water with them to a call,
and that during, say, a 12-hour call, water that firefighters had
brought with them may not be sufficient. 
 
“There’s some opportunities, things we can think about,” said Danielsen. 
Ultimately, reusable water bottles for staff were not included in the budget.