capecodtimes.com

Brewster campaign aims to reduce public’s use of single-use plastic

By Ethan Genter
Posted Sept 23, 2019

BREWSTER — In talking about water in Brewster, most of the chatter is about the famous flats or the town’s abundance of ponds, but officials are hoping an initiative on tap water will make its own splash.

The town rolled out the “Drink Brewster Tap” campaign last week to steer people away from buying single-use plastic water bottles and instead point them toward drinking water from their kitchen faucet.

“Brewster is very fortunate,” said Meg Morris, a member of the Recycling Commission. “We have excellent water here.”

The educational campaign was approved by the Recycling Commission and the Water Commission and features people well known in town, including state Rep. Timothy Whelan; authors Jacquelyn Mitchard and Sally Gunning; and Police Chief Heath Eldredge, all with a glass or bottle of tap water and the slogan “I choose Brewster Tap.”

“This is the first tap-water education campaign on Cape Cod,” said Select Board member Mary Chaffee, who helped craft the effort.

The campaign grew from ongoing efforts in town to reduce single-use plastic water bottles, Chaffee said.

A citizen petition at the annual town meeting attempted to ban the town from procuring or selling plastic water bottles, but the article was referred to the Recycling Commission. The Select Board is considering a policy that would prohibit the town from buying beverages in single-use plastic bottles.

The policy has exemptions for public safety and commitments to install bubblers and bottle-filling stations in public buildings. Because the policy recommends eliminating plastic bottles, Chaffee said the town needs to give people another option.

“If you’re going to restrict access to something you’ve got to produce an alternative,” she said. “The great alternative that Brewster has is Brewster’s award-winning tap water.”

Brewster has received several accolades for its water over the years, including best drinking water in New England from the New England Water Works Association in 2012 and 2106; best-tasting water from the Massachusetts Water Works Association in 2018 and 2019; and public water system award for a medium/large community from the Statehouse and the Department of Environmental Protection in 2019.

If the environmental and taste factors aren’t enough for residents, Chaffee points to the cost savings of drinking tap over bottled water.

By her calculations, Brewster water costs .5 cents a gallon, compared with the cheapest bottled water she could find on Cape, at $1.06 a gallon.

“The cost alone is really dramatic,” Chaffee said. “I think that will get people’s attention.”

The campaign is a way for the town to cut down on the use of plastic bottles, beyond the current policy on the table. Even that would reduce only the town’s purchasing of bottled water, not the public’s, Chaffee said.

“The town of Brewster is really a minimal user,” she said. “The purchase of plastic bottles by the public is a much bigger problem.”

Morris hopes the campaign will get people to think twice about buying the bottles, as does Douglas Whilcock, a town water commissioner.

“Hopefully the word will get out and people will think about Brewster water instead of bottled water,” he said.