Chicago To Tax Bottled Water (TH)

Other cities striving to be green and under financial stress should take a look at this: why not tax pollutants and waste for the cost of their recovery? Why not put deposits on everything?

Note also "Every time you look, there's plastic all over."

USA today summarizes other measures that cities are taking to control the spread of bottled water:

The mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake City have asked city employees not to use bottled water or have banned city spending on it.

• The Ann Arbor, Mich., City Council this summer urged residents to tote refillable bottles and stopped buying bottled water for city functions. "We're not trying to make bottled water the bad guys," city spokeswoman Nancy Stone says. "We want to make the statement that tap water is great."

•New York Assemblyman Bob Sweeney has proposed a ban on individual bottles of water in state facilities. "This is something people can understand," he says.

• The Farmers Diner in Quechee, Vt., stopped selling bottled water a few months ago. Customers "are quite happy to get water from a well," the restaurant's Denise Yandow says.

•Santa Barbara, Calif., in April stopped buying bottled water and began serving tap water at city functions. "There's a significant amount of energy consumed to produce, store, bottle and ship the water," city spokeswoman Nina Johnson says. "This is one of the simplest ways to counter that."

USA Today