In June, Ottawa City hall passed a resolution to ban single-use plastics from municipal buildings and promote their own excellent municipal tap water. Thank you for your support in this!

OWSAG along with other  groups (Ecology Ottawa, Extinction Rebellion, Zero Plastic, Greenpeace, the Green Party and Climate Strike) will be participating in a ceremonial dump of used plastics, complete with street theatre, at Parliament Hill on Friday, September 13 at noon.

Please continue to collect used plastic bottles during the summer and plan to bring your bottles and join us on Friday, September 13. Email us if you have any questions at owsag.info@gmail.com. Stay tuned for details!

The Ottawa Water Study/Action Group is excited to be partnering with blueW this fall to get your favourite community businesses to promote tap water!

blueW is a unique community-based program dedicated to promoting municipal tap water as a healthy, easily accessible alternative to purchasing sugary, bottled drinks. blueW provides mapped details on where to find clean, free public and commercial sources to fill your reusable bottle without compelling people to make additional purchases.

blueW is a growing network of over 27,000 shops, restaurants and public spaces where people can refill their water bottles with safe, clean tap water – helping people to make healthier choices for hydration, avoid single-use plastic, and to appreciate the hard work of municipal water providers.

On Tuesday, June 18 at 9:30 a.m., an important motion will be put to the Ottawa City Council environmental committee. It will request three things:
(a) that the present contract with Coca Cola to sell single-use plastic beverage bottles in municipal buildings NOT be renewed;
(b) that in the future, the sale of all single-use plastic bottles be eliminated from Municipal buildings and;
(c) that more funding be allocated to promote Ottawa’s excellent municipal tap water.

It is expected that this motion will then come up for approval by the full Ottawa City Council on Wednesday, June 26
at 9:30 a.m.

Here's how you can take action and support this important motion:
1) Contact your own city councillor by letter, email or phone, requesting them to support this motion. Check out the guidelines and sample letter below to assist. 
2) You can attend the June 18 Environmental committee meeting and speak to this motion (5 min.). To register to speak, send an email request to: Christopher.Zweirzchowski@ottawa.ca  Also, if you send an email message to your councillor, copy your message to Christopher Zweirzchowski.
3) You can also attend the full council meeting on Wednesday, June 26. We cannot make presentations then, but we can show our support by our attendance.

And be sure to sign the Bottled Water Declaration if you haven't already. We will be delivering the signatures that day!