Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer rights organization based in Washington, D.C., has launched an environmental campaign against bottled water that it hopes meeting and event planners will join and support, it announced recently. Called "Take Back the Tap," the campaign will educate meeting planners as well as consumers about the pros of tap water and the cons of its bottled equivalent.
At the center of Food & Water Watch's Take Back the Tap effort is an event called Slow Food Nation, which is being organized by Slow Food USA—an organization that advocates so-called "eco-gastronomy"—in order to showcase sustainable agriculture and healthy eating. In an effort at demonstrating how meeting planners can use, serve and distribute tap water at their events, Food & Water Watch plans to provide tap water for the inaugural event, which will take place Labor Day weekend in San Francisco.
"Slow Food Nation will be a model for caterers, conference planners or anyone who wants to plan an event that excludes bottled water and will be the perfect opportunity to show how much difference people can make with a change of habit on a large scale," Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement.
In addition to its presence at Slow Food Nation, Food & Water Watch has developed a guide, titled "Free Your Event from Bottled Water," that includes tips and advice for planning and executing bottled water-free meetings and events. Available online at
FoodandWaterWatch.org the guide highlights the health, financial and environmental rewards that event planners can reap by serving tap water to attendees.
"Serving tap water at events like Slow Food Nation is clearly economically and environmentally beneficial," Hauter concluded. "Not only does it save money, but it also saves your event from being littered with empty water bottles that may end up clogging our landfills."