A while back, I wrote a post about Bundanoon, a small tourist town in the Southern Highlands region of New South Wales, Australia that was attempting to become the first town in the world to ban the sale of bottled water. Well, they did it; Bundanoon is now the first town in the world to officially ban bottled water.In a near unanimous vote, store owners voted to stop selling bottled water, despite the profits it makes them. Instead, they will sell reusable water bottles labeled 'Bundy on Tap' which visitors can fill from water fountains dotted throughout the town.
The campaign to ban the bottled started in 2007 in response to a proposal by Norlex Holdings to extract hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from a spring beneath the town, ship it to Sydney for bottling and bring it back to the town to sell.
Premier Nathan Rees of New South Wales showed support for the bottled water ban in Bundanoon by ordering the government's own ban on purchasing bottled water in all state departments and agencies, to be followed by a public awareness campaign against bottled water.
In the last few months, I've been emailing back and forth with Huw Kingston who lead the campaign in Bundanoon. After the news I wanted to check in with him. I got this reply; 'Its been pretty mad Kylie - I've done over 150 interviews worldwide, TV crews everywhere. Bigger than we ever thought. Probably biggest knock to BWI so far and we are obviously a target for some reaction from industry (started already'!)
I'm guessing we'll be hearing a lot more about this tiny town in the coming months.
I REALLY liked your post and blog! It took me a little bit to find your site...but I book marked it. Would you mind if I but a link back to your site?