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SAN FRANCISCO -- The sale of single-use water bottles at events on San Francisco property -- including parks, streets and festivals -- may be a thing of the past if city environment commissioner Ruth Gravanis has her way. Her proposed ban follows Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2007 executive order prohibiting the city from purchasing bottled water.
Gravanis suggested that in place of bottled water, event promoters could either give away or sell reusable bottles and provide municipal water through fountains, jugs or tanks where people could fill them.
Julie Bryant, the city's zero-waste coordinator, was tasked with exploring the ban and was expected to present her preliminary findings last week to the Environment Commission's policy committee, the San Francisco Examiner reported.
Tom Lauria, spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association, argued that providing only municipal water at public events poses a risk to people's health, adding that "the counterbalance to bottled water is recycling, not bans."
