We are no longer selling bottled water at the cafe. [update: we now sell boxed water if you want it to go] I saw a Pop! Tech talk with Chris Jordan about a month ago. He wanted to engage us in the impact of Pacific Garbage Patch. Well it worked on me.
He photographed dead albatross chicks who had died from eating the plastic they were fed by their parents who thought it was food.
Here is what Chris Jordan says on his website about this project:
"On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.
For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth. Like the albatross, we first-world humans find ourselves lacking the ability to discern anymore what is nourishing from what is toxic to our lives and our spirits. Choked to death on our waste, the mythical albatross calls upon us to recognize that our greatest challenge lies not out there, but in here."
And that does not even account for the fact that 5 times the amount of water is polluted in the production of the bottle than the bottle actually contains.
Previously I had thought that it is good to offer a healthier beverage option to our dehydrated customers. Why should we only be able to choose sugary (though organic) drinks? Well the answer has come back pretty clearly: "Because water is packaged in unacceptable containers".
So no more plastic bottles in the cafe as of today. And the only thing we offered in plastic bottles was water.
So we are no longer selling water. We are however an official Quench refill location. QUENCH is a free Mobile App that connects you to the nearest water fountain or official water bottle Refill Location in the Greater Toronto Area.
We now provide filtered tap water free. Just bring your own container. Or, with your order, we'll serve it on the side in a good old fashioned glass. And of course we still have our dog water out front! We just keep raising the bar.