Bottled water must be the most brilliant marketing ploy ever conceived. Some marketing reps decided to take good ol’ tap water, run it through a filter, and then package it in attractive bottles depicting pastoral scenes designed to somehow set their product apart from basically identical competing brands. Through clever advertising about the dangers of tap water and the pure, delicious, refreshing nature of bottled water, it has turned into a multibillion-dollar industry.

According to Beverage Marketing, a provider of beverage industry data, big water bottlers poured 8.82 billion gallons in 2007, putting $11.7 billion into their wallets, a number expected to rise. Bottlers must be slapping each other on the back, laughing and watching the money flow — like, well, water from a tap. The environmental impact, however, is just as large as the profit margins.

Earlier this year, Phil Woolas, the U.K.’s environment minister, was all over the headlines when he said that the bottled water industry bordered on the immoral. The carbon footprint involved in producing a bottle of water and then transporting those bulky bottles to the consumer is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. According to The Times, “a Swedish study calculated that the environmental impact of bottled water was 90 to 1,000 times greater than tap water and could be higher.”

The manufacturing process takes approximately five litres of water to produce a one-litre finished product. In addition, once the water inside them is consumed, most of those plastic water bottles end up in landfills or in the streets. Peter Ainsworth, an MP and outspoken environment critic, backed up Woolas: “Huge amounts are imported from other countries — some now, ludicrously, from the Far East. This is an ecological nightmare, and it doesn’t make economic sense either. It certainly raises questions about the basis on which we have constructed our economic lives. By any rational standard it’s crazy to be importing water from countries far away when there’s perfectly good water in our taps.”

Recently, the city council of London, Ontario voted overwhelmingly in favour of a ban on bottled water. The move made London one of the first major Canadian cities to institute such a ban, which will begin by limiting the sale of bottled water at municipal buildings and city facilities. By the end of next year, the sale of those ubiquitous plastic water bottles will be prohibited at golf courses and city parks as well.

Only three councillors opposed the measure on the basis that it undermines choice. Nevertheless, the tide seems to be turning in favour of greater regulation. Toronto Mayor David Miller is now considering following London’s example and will be looking at a ban as part of a larger strategy to curb waste. Other Canadian cities like Vancouver, Ottawa, St. John’s, Kitchener and Windsor have all been considering municipal bottled water ban measures. Alberta’s rivers and glacial tributaries provide for some of the cleanest and safest drinking water around, and the City of Calgary needs to examine the rationale behind the importation of bottled water and take action now. There’s something to be said for our municipal government taking small steps to show the public that it frowns on absurd consumer practices. Who knows? Drinking a bottle of water might one day carry the same social stigma as smoking a cigarette.