NORTHAMPTON — The city’s first venture as a blue community begins with the people who its proponents most sought to help: the next generation.
The city became the first so-called blue community in the U.S. when the City Council passed a resolution to that effect on Thursday. The framework for the blue community movement, which seeks to protect public water and minimize use of single-use plastic water bottles, comes from Canada. Northampton resident and University of Massachusetts Amherst marketing professor Bill Diamond stumbled upon the initiative in his research about plastic water bottles, and decided it was a good fit for the city.
Over the past six months the city’s climate activists joined forces with Diamond to bring the measure to the forefront. They hope to change the culture around single-use plastic water bottles and remind people of the caliber of Northampton’s tap water.
“It’s going to be a long effort to make people aware of this, to let people know how good the water in Northampton is, to save money and be healthier,” Diamond said, adding chemicals that leech from plastic into the water it contains can cause endocrine disruption.
Northampton High School student Mali Hornby-Finch, 17, said the school’s environmental club was excited to join the movement. The club began raising funds in February to build a “hydration station” — a fountain for refilling reusable water bottles — at the school. They’ve raised just shy of $1,000, which is exactly what’s required to erect the station.
“I just saw so many people using plastic water bottles and I didn’t really see a purpose for it,” she said. “My age group is definitely pushing for change, maybe more so than people of older generations because we really see the effect that pollution has had on our world.”
Diamond said Americans use 1,500 single-use plastic water bottles every second.
“I became aware of the problem and I was amazed at the magnitude of it,” he said.
Now that the resolution has passed, Diamond said he and other organizers will purchase a portable bottle-filling station to bring to city events. He said they’ll also work to get decals for local businesses who wish to advertise the fact that they’re willing to fill customers’ bottles.
Mayor David Narkewicz said he stands by the spirit of the resolution, though revenues attached to vending machines in municipal buildings may be hard to part with. Vending machines in the schools, for example, subsidize the schools’ reduced lunch program. “How quickly the schools could move away from bottled water — there are some fiscal constraints around that,” he said. “It’s something we’re striving toward.”
City Council President Bill Dwight, among those to unanimously approve the measure, said it’s a first step toward changing the way we think about bottled water.
“It’s bizarre to ship bottled water from another community into our community when we have perfectly good water,” he said.