Home Blogs & Views Birmingham Mail Columnists Jon Walker

MPs urged to quit the bottle

Feb 20 2008 By Jon Walker

WHILE politicians are busy dreaming up ways to make as all go green - charging us to put out our rubbish or drive our cars, for example - they are slow to change their own habits.

Last October, Black Country MP John Spellar (Lab Warley) discovered that the House of Commons got through 156,157 litres of bottled water in 12 months.

The mineral water was sold in Commons canteens, handed out in committee meetings or poured into water coolers.

The House of Commons has plenty of taps, supplying perfectly good clean drinking water, but MPs and their staff were having bottled stuff ferried in, leading to pollution from the transportation and packaging.

Environment Minister Phil Woolas has revealed that his department has started to cut back on mineral water, but Mr Spellar is determined to speed up the move towards tap water. He said: "I will be going back to all Government Departments to see what progress has been made."

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